Grandmother's House: A Self-sustaining Community for Indigenous Seniors in Edmonton's Urban Core

Edmonton, Alberta has the second largest urban population of Indigenous people in all of Canada. Unfortunately, the city also has significant discrimination against Indigenous people. Discrimination is of one of the factors in the large indigenous homeless, which includes many seniors who are the sole caretakers of children. There is a need to house three-thousand urban indigenous seniors, their children, and grandchildren within Edmonton. Case studies of a current Métis seniors housing in Edmonton, friendship centers in Vancouver, and a multigenerational housing unit in the Netherlands shed light on what is currently available for Indigenous seniors and what models are working elsewhere that should be integrated into Indigenous seniors housing in Edmonton. While accounting for Edmonton's existing and proposed infrastructure as well as the city's settlement patterns, is it possible to create a culturally appropriate Indigenous community within Edmonton's downtown core?