'In a crisis': Deaths of Indigenous women in Winnipeg spark calls for safe housing

Lori Ann Mancheese always wanted a home, but the 53-year-old mother of five from Manitoba's Ebb and Flow First Nation died before her dream could come true.

Earlier this month, her remains were found in a farmer's field outside of Winnipeg.

"She tried her best to be happy even though she didn't have a home," said Norma Mancheese, Lori Ann's sister.

Mounties have said, at this point, her death doesn't appear to be criminal. But Lori Ann's family say they cannot understand how she would end up left at that location.

Her death is now one of five women in the span of about a month being grieved by members of the province's Indigenous community. Winnipeg police say three of those women were murdered.

At least 11 Indigenous women and girls have been murdered in the city since June 2019, when the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released its final report, according to an analysis by The Canadian Press of homicides reported by the police service.

Immediate action is needed to make the province safer for Indigenous women, including better access to safe housing, which can be life-saving, said Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, chair of the National Family and Survivors Circle.

The need extends beyond offering more overnight emergency shelter space, she said, and includes more transitional and longer term housing options that offer the proper cultural and social supports.

What Anderson-Pyrz finds lacking is political will.

As an example, she points to the response mounted by the government against the COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrated how fast decision-makers and bureaucracies can move.

"This is very similar," she said. "We're losing human lives."

The survivors circle was established in response to the 231 calls to justice made in the final report from the national inquiry, and is designed to provide advice to Ottawa on implementing the recommended changes.

Last month, Anderson-Pyrz's niece Tessa Perry was among those killed in Winnipeg.

"There's been so many losses, it seems like we're in a perpetual state of grief," Anderson-Pyrz said. "We're in a crisis."