Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I’ll start with some of my issues and concerns and support towards housing.

One of the things I support is this new rental scale program. It’s built on encouraging people to stay working, where the old system was a deterrent to be working. If you made a certain income, because of your income you were discouraged because the rent went to high amounts. The maximum amounts are quite a bit less now, so there’s an incentive to stay working. You are contributing to the economy yet taking advantage of public housing.

One of the other issues I know that’s a concern in my area is senior housing and the amount of senior housing available. We are seeing a high demand for seniors housing and multiple units. I’m just interested in seeing where the department is going with that. Especially as our population ages, we are going to see more and more demands for that. Thankfully, some of that is the Northwest Territories and keeping a lot of seniors that typically used to travel south or move south once they became retirement age. Now we’re seeing them stay in the North, spending their retirement in the North. I think that’s a positive spin, but it’s also putting pressure on our senior housing and, obviously, our health care system as well.

Another situation that we have that we’re concerned with in the Hay River area is homelessness, I guess. A homeless shelter for men would be an added, additional area of concern, which I know Housing has had some dealings with. That’s an area that I’m hoping that we’re going to be able to work with Housing on some of those issues in the near future.

Getting back to the rental scale program, also I would like to see the department set up a tracking system on how this is being implemented and how effective it is, as well as doing a review after a year, 18 months, two years, whatever they deem adequate to indicate what some of the results are as far as financially and arrears-wise, as well as the effectiveness of the program and be willing to tweak the program wherever possible to make it more effective.

One of the other issues that are coming up with seniors housing is seniors having to pay for public housing. In the Hay River area, we’ve had some meetings. It’s an area of debate. There are several seniors, quite a few seniors that feel that they are willing to pay a little bit. Often with a claim: as long as it’s fair and equitable for everybody. There are some that are probably against it as well. In that area, I’m kind of torn and sitting on the fence because there is a 50/50 split, I think, in supporting or not supporting seniors having to pay housing.

Those are some of my initial concerns with the housing programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.