Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to speak today in regard to the negative impacts we’re seeing in income support and the household rents that are being charged by the Housing Corporation by way of economic rents. The ideal situation that everyone should have a job, everyone should have an opportunity to work, but, more importantly, we all know realistically we have high pockets of unemployment in our communities.
A lot of people in our communities have an average income per year that is less than $18,000. Yet the economic rate charged in our community is $2,300 a month. That is totally unjustified. The take home pay of an individual who might find himself getting a job, which in most cases our jobs in our communities are seasonal at two months or three months a year, yet those individuals have to also continue to raise a family, continue to maintain their lifestyles, continue to provide for their families and provide for the individuals and other family members in our communities.
I think it’s very important that this government seriously considers looking at the policy that was in place prior to the decision to move the income subsidy to ECE from Housing. There was a policy in the Housing Corporation where it clearly stipulated that if an individual who was employed for a number of months was able to find a job, that there was a probation period allowed for those individuals to retain some of those earnings over a period of time -- a couple months -- make them aware what their economic rate was going to be so
that they were prepared for the economic rate when it was given to them so they knew ahead of time. They knew what it was going to cost if you continued to work, but at least we gave them the opportunity to save during those periods of time and get themselves into the employment opportunities in our communities. In a lot of cases those individuals ended up being homeowners, being able to access programs in our government because they had a good paying job.
What we’re seeing now is that as soon as an individual goes to work, he basically…
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted.