Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in the House the Minister of Finance announced a transfer of public housing back to the NWT Housing Corporation and ultimately back to the local housing organizations. I feel this was an excellent move. However, Mr. Speaker, the Income Support Program being administered by ECE still has its challenges.
In one of the two communities I represent, we do not have a community services officer. This makes it difficult for people to get assistance in a timely manner, but timely response is not the only issue, Mr. Speaker. The program is a computer program that has no creativity, no feeling and it’s being delivered in communities where employment rates are about 40 percent.
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about how clients were assessed, are assessed and how decisions are made with respect to their situation. At one time, many of these decisions were made by social workers and in many of these communities these social workers were well known, well liked and they knew the people and the community knew them and in many cases they knew the circumstances behind why the individual or the family was coming for assistance. The system seemed to work well.
Then things changed. The Income Support Program went through a number of changes. Today the program starts off with a six-page application form and we have a program that many of our constituents in smaller isolated communities, the community service officer only comes in once a month or so and the program is very computer-
based and decisions on people’s lives are beside it on the computer screen. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.