Thank you, Mr. Speaker. People are living in warehouses, they are living in tents, they are drifting from house to house, sleeping on floors and couches, they are overnighting in RCMP cells. As NASA would say, Houston, we have a problem.

I want to ask a question that I often hear, is where are we supposed to go. We like to think that homelessness is a big city problem. It seems community homeless are out of sight and forgotten, except for those people who face the unfortunate situation themselves.

I want to put it on record, loud and clear, there are homeless in my region and in other regions too, no doubt. Why is this happening? I can only speak to what I see myself. Why do people lose their homes or get kicked out of one of them when they have alcohol addiction, which is one of the biggest causes. We know that the easiest way to get addictions treatment is to go to jail, which also puts a roof over their head.

People get kicked out of public housing too. It could be for not paying their rent for too long or for other reasons.

Let me go back to my original question. Where are the people without their homes supposed to go? There’s no homeless shelter in the Sahtu region, unless you include a few jail cells. Other regions do have shelters. I know there are emergency shelters in Inuvik, Fort Smith and, of course, Yellowknife. Some Sahtu residents end up in Yellowknife for that reason. There is at least some help for them here in the capital. I’m not sure how much money our government spends to help fund these shelters – probably not enough anyway – but not one measly dollar is spent in the Sahtu region.

As Members, we set our priorities more than a year ago for healthy, safe and sustainable communities, but we still struggle with the basics. Where do you go when you have no home? Where do you go to escape family violence? Where will you get help to beat an addiction or restore your mental health? For starters, we need emergency shelters in the Sahtu region. What we need is some help to solve these problems closer to our home. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.