Homelessness in Northern Women Research Project
Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council is part of a pan-territorial steering
committee of service providers and women’s advocacy organizations that is
currently conducting research on homelessness in Northern women. This research
project is being carried out in the three territorial capitals: Whitehorse,
Yukon; Yellowknife, NWT; and Iqaluit, Nunavut. Nunavut Qulliit Nunavut Status
of Women Council has taking on the responsibility for the Nunavut component
of this project.
The research, which uses both individual interviews and focus
groups, is conducting surveys with women who are chronically homeless
and women who are episodically homeless. Part of the research will
also focus on policy makers, funding agencies and other key stakeholders.
The research is meant to be participatory and action-oriented. We
specifically chose to act pan-territorially so that we could learn
from each other and support each other’s efforts for change. While
there are differences among the three territories, we feel there
are also significant similarities.
Here in Nunavut we successfully accessed enough funding, through
the National Secretariat on Homelessness, to hire one full-time
researcher. Due to our unique geographical and cultural differences,
however, we decided to work from a research team approach. We took
the monies available for one full-time researcher and divided it
into two part-time researchers. While we believed the decision to
divide the Nunavut one full time research position into two part
time positions would benefit this research project from a cultural
perspective, it did limit the scope of our ability to reach out
beyond the Iqaluit area. To address this shortcoming, we submitted
an additional proposal to the Department of Education's homelessness
program and successfully secured additional funding. This allowed
us to expand our research beyond the boundaries of Iqaluit and to
include participants from all three regions of Nunavut. This will
allow the research results to more fully represent the realities
of women across the whole of Nunavut, not just one location or region.
Our current research team consists of one team member with an academic and research background. Our second team member has the linguistic, cultural and community connections which are are essential to allow this research to truly reflect the uniqueness of Nunavut.