Government officials, service providers, and people with lived experience in homelessness have been taking part in Metis Nation-Saskatchewan’s second annual Housing and Homelessness Conference in Saskatoon.

MN-S President Glen McCallum says the two-day event aims to empower the Metis population and discuss possible solutions to address Saskatchewan’s growing homelessness issue. He hopes that partnerships, programming, and higher learning will deter homelessness from affecting members of the nation in the future.

Topics of discussion have included tiny homes, rural homelessness, homeless encampments, social housing, and zoning issues.

He says last year’s inaugural conference was about MN-S introducing themselves and identifying how the nation could collaborate with the provincial and federal governments to improve the homelessness situation. This year’s conference aims to organize programs that can be co-developed between the governments.

“The more that we work on programming and higher learning, most likely, our people will capitalize on that, and we can deter homelessness in the near future by developing partnerships,” McCallum stated.

He adds that MN-S is making a lot of progress, and the provincial and federal governments are starting to see that.

“Hopefully we can better communicate with each other and plan our processes in regards to the issue of homelessness, and other issues we can address here in this province.”

MN-S has implemented several beneficial programs for its people, including the First Time Home Buyers program and the Repair program.

“The Repair program is a program where people that own their own homes, and they want to fix their homes, they can tap into that program that we have here at Metis Nation.”

The Metis Nation also provide access to post-secondary education funding, which has sent over 2000 members back to school.

“They’re developing their careers and creating strength and stability within their homes and their children, and we have to continue doing that.”

He anticipates that 250 to 300 people will take part in the conference, which wraps up today, and he expects more people to attend each year that it takes place.