COVID-19 Pandemic and Poverty Among Urbanized Indigenous People in Canada

This paper analyzes the disproportionate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on urbanized Indigenous people who are precariously housed, experiencing homelessness, have limited access to hygiene and lack space to follow public health measures of social distancing. COVID-19 is not a racial infection; yet institutionalized racism leaves vulnerable populations such as urbanized Indigenous people more exposed to infections and becoming hospitalized. This paper will interpret the experiences of urbanized Indigenous peoples’ experiences with COVID-19 in Toronto, Thunder Bay in Ontario and Vancouver in British Columbia. Research uncovers that the urbanized Indigenous peoples’ experiences with COVID-19 are given the colonial history and persistent racial discriminations encounters. This paper will also demonstrate the limitations of COVID-19 data collection amongst urban Indigenous communities and how these limitations undermine government accountability measures aimed at protecting urbanized Indigenous people from further harm due to COVID-19.