The district staff are very hardworking people and sometimes they come into the community and they see a lot of people and sometimes it’s more than their time on the ground there. So sometimes they see a few people and then have to go, you know. These people that work at the district office, I know they put their hearts into their work, they’re good people, and I want to say that when they come in, I’m hoping that they would have someone there with them that would help them, because the other staff from the local housing authorities are pretty busy, so when they come in to see the people, they say to this old lady or this old gentleman, you need a new toilet or you need a new tub, you need to get it fixed, and then they leave. But then nothing happens for a month or two. It’s still very hard for the old people to take a shower or a bath. It may not seem very much for us
young people, but for the old people it’s a real concern. We know their heart is to fix it and get it done.
Now, Mr. Polakoff was saying that if we missed them, then they have to wait for another intake. I guess what I’m asking in my request is to have someone dedicated from the district office just to look after the seniors, because you’ve got one person coming into Tulita or Good Hope, that person is pretty busy going house to house with applications and asking questions. And you know next time, well, they have to leave or sometimes the people are not in town, they’re in the bush and there’s nobody there. Like in Good Hope where they went to see this elder. This elder, part of his life is on the land. How come this person didn’t know that this old man was on the land with his wife? We’ve got to have some kind of communication that’s really strong in terms of saying to our elders that someone needs to work with them more strongly. That’s why I keep advocating for someone within the Housing to have an elders position to look after our elders on everything with housing. For us young people my age it’s okay, but especially for the elderly people we need to really work with them a little more strongly in terms of the services that we are doing for them.
I want to ask again with Housing here, what Mr. Polakoff is saying, having someone dedicated to explaining to them the application, because some of them get turned down because of land tenure. The Minister and I had an exchange yesterday in terms of sometimes an application doesn’t make it through because of some other issues. I’m just thinking that we need to have a little more consideration for our older people. That’s who I’m speaking for. I’m thinking about this older lady in Tulita who has a real hard time to take a bath, just to lift her leg over the bathtub there. It’s hard for her, but nobody’s doing anything to fix her bathtub. And that’s only one. There are many across my region that are in that situation.
I certainly support the workers going in there. Their intentions are good. There’s only so much money dedicated for each community and so there are a lot of needs that need to be met in my region. I want to ask Mr. Minister about taking care of the older people first. At the same time, he’s got to juggle how to take care of the other people. However, I’m speaking now for just for the old people on this one issue here. I want to just give a chance for the Minister to make a comment on my comments here.