Indigenous housing and health in the Canadian North: Revisiting cultural safety

In this article, I explore the relationship between housing, home and health amongst Indigenous homeless people living in the Canadian North. In particular, I examine the ways in which Indigenous homemaking practices conflict with housing policy, and exacerbate individual pathways to homelessness. I argue that integral components in northern Indigenous conceptualizations of home and, in turn, health are not only unrecognized in housing policy, but actively discouraged. The potential for homemaking to inform health and housing policy speaks to the relevance of cultural safety not only to Indigenous health services, but also to a comprehensive framing of Indigenous health.