Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, these are mobile homes, not trailers. These are actually physical homes that people live in and I think it's important to realize that since this program has come out, we have identified 42 units; 22 the first year and 20 this year. But I think because of the publicity that this program has got, I think it's helped us in attracting other communities who are now calling us asking us if they can get these units in their community, such as the hamlets in different communities. They are calling us, we don't have to call them and I think because they realize that this is such a good deal financially to themselves, but also they are in the same challenge we are trying to attract professionals, SAO financial officers, that, if anything, we do have to reach out to more communities with this program.
We're only going to be able to deliver this year to communities in regard to Norman Wells, because of the health board challenges. We were talking to people in Rae in regard to their challenge with the Tlicho deal, because they realize there's a major challenge and also their community services board is requesting that they realize in order to face this challenge, they have to have something that's affordable at the end of the day and it's also economically cost efficient. I think that in order for us to do it, one thing that we've done is we have looked at restructuring these facilities. We've talked to businesses that are now coming to us asking us to partner with them so that they can build either multi-plex units or look at duplex structures. I think that we are definitely seeing a major increase in other organizations out there that are now asking us to deliver.
I think the whole idea of the market strategy was to ensure that we can develop a product which is designed for the North, but also we're able to meet the needs of a lot of our professionals. I think you can't just restrict them to teachers or nurses or the RCMP or hamlet staff. We are starting to realize that a lot of these communities are running into barriers where they cannot even deliver basic core programs that this government offers, because of not having staff.
We just got a request from Tulita from an individual that used to work there who had to leave the community because they couldn't find housing, and now they want to go back there because now they realize that they have an option.
So these are professionals who have left and are coming back because now they realize that there is housing accommodation there. I think that from the experience that we've had from the first phase, we are realizing that now there are people who have options. We are getting requests from communities where we have these units. Yes, they were vacant, but at least now we have for sale signs in the windows and now people are calling our regional offices requesting that they be considered to be able to purchase these units. We have a community that didn't have a market and now there is a market, and that's the whole idea of developing a market strategy for non-market communities where there wasn't one in the first place. So again, we have people who now have an option, which wasn't there a year ago.
Again, I'd like to ensure that we do offer this to other communities that find themselves in a similar predicament, where we have to be able to work with them to ensure that they do have adequate, affordable, suitable housing for the professionals in their communities but, more importantly, to ensure the communities are able to deliver core programs without having this barrier in their face because they cannot attract professionals in their community. Thank you.