Cenovus teams with First Nations to build northern Alberta homes amid housing crisis

Raoul Montgrand, president of the Chard Métis Nation in northern Alberta, called a 200-square-foot camper trailer home for close to two years.

Raoul Montgrand, president of the Chard Métis Nation in northern Alberta, called a 200-square-foot camper trailer home for close to two years.

The community leader and his wife were among the many residents affected by an ongoing housing crisis in the isolated hamlet, located about an hour-and-a-half drive southeast of Fort McMurray. 

But Montgrand, who now lives in a beautiful new pre-fabricated home situated just a stone's throw from his old trailer, says what bothered him most about the dire housing conditions in Chard was what it meant for the community's children.

"Before, we would see five or six families in one house," Montgrand said in a recent interview.

"Without a house, there's no education. How are the kids going to go to school without a house to live in?"

The Chard Métis Nation is one of six Indigenous communities in northern Alberta that are part of Cenovus Energy Inc.'s Indigenous Housing Initiative. Announced by the company in January 2020, the program pledged $50 million to build homes in the First Nations and Métis communities closest to its oilsands operations in northern Alberta.