Thank you. Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]
Today I wish also to speak about the transfer of public housing assessments from the local housing
organizations to the income support officers in the communities or the transfer of this function from the NWT Housing Corporation to Education, Culture and Employment. I’m not making this statement because I think that Education, Culture and Employment has done a bad job of this, it’s because I think that the government didn’t think about the dignity of the people that they were dealing with.
In effect, this government put 2,300 public housing clients on income support, or better known in the community as welfare. That’s how it was seen. People who had never been on welfare before were living in public housing. Considering they had pride in their homes, they were able to get a unit themselves to house their families. The government decided, hey, we’ll put them all on welfare. And that’s exactly what happened.
It was never that all income support clients were in public housing or that all public housing clients were on income support. It is the issue of dignity. This indignity was levelled to the people in public housing. It created major confusion for all public housing clients, especially the seniors. The working poor were paying their subsidized rent. They were going to the LHO each month and went there for decades. Suddenly some of these people had to apply for income support or welfare in order to obtain their subsidy. Many people did not go to the income support office and all of a sudden they were in serious arrears and facing eviction. Some people were evicted. Some had nowhere to live. All of a sudden they had bad credit. Not because they were different tenants or that they were bad tenants, it was because the government changed the policy. People that did not go to the income support office were automatically charged maximum rent.
I seek unanimous consent to finish my Member’s statement.
---Unanimous consent granted