People First Radio – November 12, 2026People First Radio – November 12, 2026
People First Radio
A new Indigenous youth village called Sitse is used as a starting point to talk about what safe housing, education supports, and extended care can mean for young people leaving foster care. Guests share lived experience, research, and advocacy on how current systems affect youth and what meaningful change might look like.
0:00•13 Nov 2026
“Our Future” Homes: Youth Leaving Care, Indigenous Community, and Real Support
Episode Overview
- Stable, culturally rooted housing like Sitse can give former youth in care a genuine sense of security, belonging, and connection to community.
- Open-ended housing, without an age cut-off, allows young adults to plan education and careers instead of constantly fearing eviction.
- Tuition waiver schemes and extended support programmes significantly reduce barriers to post-secondary education for people who grew up in care.
- Youth aging out of care face high risks of homelessness, criminalisation, poverty, and untreated trauma when supports end abruptly at 18 or 19.
- Advocates call for national, equitable standards so all youth leaving care in Canada have access to consistent, meaningful support into adulthood.
“We’re wrapping our children to know that they are loved, giving them that strength, so with every step they’re going to be stronger in their mind, their heart, and their soul, because they’re home.”
What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? People First Radio turns that question towards young people aging out of foster care, and what happens when they’re finally given a real home and real support. Centred on Sitse – “Our Future” – a four-home village on Snuneymuxw First Nation, the episode follows three Indigenous young adults, aged 19 to 26, who have spent time in care.
You’ll hear from Elder Joan Brown, who donated the land and reflects on the emotional and spiritual importance of the project: “We’re wrapping our children to know that they are loved, giving them that strength, so with every step they’re going to be stronger in their mind, their heart, and their soul, because they’re home.” Site manager and peer support worker Lance Point talks about stable housing as “one of the biggest keys to having a future.” The episode also looks at the bigger picture.
One new resident, Caitlin, shares how the offer to move in came just as she was worrying about losing her housing, saying the village brings “a sense of security and a sense of belonging” and lets her plan things like school and a career without counting down the days until she has to leave.
Experts Jackie Gahagan and Melanie Doucette outline how youth across Canada are pushed out of care into poverty, homelessness, and criminalisation, while programs like tuition waivers and BC’s SAGE scheme try to keep doors to education and basics like counselling and medical care open. Advocate Jessica Knudsen highlights how many young people in care are Indigenous and questions whether current reforms really meet their needs.
If you care about mental health, addiction risk, homelessness, or just basic fairness for young people, this conversation offers both stark realities and hopeful examples of what can change. What would it mean if every young person leaving care had a front door of their own and a community waiting to say, “Welcome home”?
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