The issue of homelessness and public housing in general is still a challenge. There are two parts of the challenges we face in tackling the housing situation in the Northwest Territories. First of all, it’s dealing with actual infrastructure of our units, whether it’s new or upgrades. The second part was to find some money to operate the units. Right now we’ve had one portion of what we needed identified for a two-year period, but that doesn’t allow us to invest in infrastructure. That’s going to require ongoing O and M. That means we can’t increase our housing stock. Our public housing stock, I should clarify. That only allows us to replace units, upgrade units, and it doesn’t allow us to increase and invest into new public housing facilities. That’s the challenge we still have.

We’re not alone in this battle. We’re not alone in this need. It’s an issue that’s right across Canada. We have agreement from all the jurisdictions in Canada to try and pressure the federal government to convince them they have to continue to invest through CMHC or by other means in social housing operation and maintenance. This is an issue here, but it is a significant issue in Nunavut, for example, and we need to have that discussion with the federal government so we can tackle issues like homelessness and more public housing stock.