Housing on the Membertou First Nation in Nova Scotia. Photo from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

The First Nations Market Housing Fund has built just 99 homes in six years, CBC News reports.

The Canadian government announced the program in 2008 and promised to build 25,000 homes by 2018. That goal will be impossible to meet, officials now concede, but they still support the initiative.

"We want to see First Nations individuals to be able to have the pride, the security and the financial stability that comes with owning their own home," Candice Bergen, the minister of state for social development, told CBC.

The program was seeded with $300 million to serve backing for individuals who want to build homes on their reserves. The fund has grown to $344 million, CBC reported, but an audit from the Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada questioned whether the effort should continue.

"In its assessment of relevance, this review found that while there is a demonstrable need for market-based housing initiatives on reserve, there is no definitive evidence that there is a need for a fund explicitly designed for this form of credit enhancement, and no evidence that this fund in particular will meet its stated objectives of increasing home ownership and reducing reliance on federal assistance for social housing," the audit, which was completed in 2012 but only made public earlier this year, stated.

According to the report, 42 percent of homes on reserve are in need of major repairs and 12 percent are considered over-crowded, compared to seven percent and one percent, respectively, off reserve. Between 20,000 and 35,000 homes are needed to alleviate conditions, a backlog that grows by 2,200 units every year.

"Poor housing leads to poor economic and social outcomes and contributes to the gap in quality of life experienced by Aboriginal people as compared to non- Aboriginal Canadians," the audit stated.

As of December 2014, 164 First Nations signed up to participate in the program, according to a press release.

Get the Story:
Harper government defends First Nations housing fund, despite poor results (CBC 5/27)
First Nations $300M federal housing fund builds just 99 homes (CBC 5/27)