Thank you, Mr. Premier. I've had several meetings with key stakeholders in this. I have met with the Minister responsible for Housing, Mr. Fontana. I've met with Ethel Blondin-Andrew, who is now the Secretary of State responsible for Northern Development. I also had a meeting with Bill Erasmus with AFN. They also are looking at housing being one of the critical issues, especially for First Nation communities across Canada.
It is high on the agenda across the nation and I think by building these working relationships through reorganizing and realizing our challenges are different in the North, I think we do need a major influx of program dollars. CMHC backed out of the whole area of social housing a number of years ago and now we're feeling the effects of that. In the last two years we've had a decline in the amount of money we get for social housing from CMHC. I think because of that, we have to be motivated into finding new ways of continuing to deliver programs and continuing at a faster pace.
I've also been meeting with people in the different sectors with regard to people in the manufacturing sectors and also with our market housing. Regarding market housing, as far as I've seen it, we have put 22 units in place. They're still not occupied yet. Again, there are 66 beds in seven communities that weren't there before. We have to try these different initiatives of trying to meet the many restraints we have, especially in smaller communities. The investment has dropped off, but I think we have to work with other organizations.
We have a major project on our doorstep with regard to the pipeline. We're looking at 300-man camps that are going to be constructed up and down the valley for the construction of this pipeline. I think working with industry, making them aware that we have to have a legacy that when these projects happen that at the end of the day we're not left without anything. One of the things I've been working on with the different companies is looking at the pre-design, preconstruction of these units that are going to come to the Northwest Territories and design them in such a way that they're able to configure them so they can be converted from industrial trailers into usable residential units. That's another way that we can look at not only saving costs for ourselves, but making these units affordable to people in communities that can use them right after these projects are over. That we don't have these massive camps which get trucked in, put on a barge, taken up to the project, used for three years and then demobilized, put back on the barge, sent back south and that's the end of it. I think we have to be unique in how we look at housing. So we are looking at it in different areas.
But I think as Members of the Legislative Assembly and ourselves, we do have to look outside the box. We're always restricted to CMHC standards. We have to follow their rules. They tell us what programs to deliver, but I think we have a unique opportunity here now with looking at the mandate of the corporation. We should be tabling here shortly phase two with regard to our needs surveys. We need to look at the seniors, single people and disabled people, how they fit in this picture and come forward with our 10-year plan and see where we go in the next 10 years. We want to work with Members in the House to find ways to get us out of this hiccup. We have to do something drastic to find the money to build almost 3,000 units just to meet the demand that's there right now.
We have had the private sector come on board, assisting us in different areas, but again, we have to find new ways of building these partnerships with the federal government, with AFN through the aboriginal funding programs they have, ourselves as government and people in the private sector. So those are some of the things that we are looking at to try and move ahead. But definitely having an influx of resources in this area will definitely help, because there are some communities where we've seen a little bit of decline with regard to the needs surveys and seeing that we have made some gains in that area. In other areas we have not seen the change. The numbers are still constant. We have to start trying to find ways of being open-minded to realize that we may need to try something different. Thank you.