Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments are quite similar to those of my colleagues, but as I’ve said before, I think they bear repeating.
I too am pleased with the work that the Housing Corporation has done over the last number of years. There have been a number of changes that have been made. I like to think that the Housing
Corp is thinking beyond the box a bit, that they are analyzing where need is and they’re responding to that need. I think the changes have been very positive on certainly the government but also, I think, on the people that are in public housing and the people that are administrating public housing, our local housing authorities.
I am also really pleased to see that the Housing Corp is focusing more and more on green works. We’ve got voltaic systems; we’ve got pellet boilers and so on, and it seems to be a bit more of a focus every year and I’m very glad to see that. I think it’s only going to prove beneficial in terms of efficiencies. Efficiencies, in my mind, are going to lower costs, and we certainly need to lower our costs because of our declining federal funding.
I only really have two main concerns and they apply particularly to my community, but they certainly apply, as well, to every community in the North. The one is the cap that we have at the moment on public housing units in our communities. Yellowknife I think particularly Yellowknife’s single people are in a particularly difficult situation with the cap on our public housing facilities. As a single person you can get on a housing list, but you’re going to stay there for years and years and years. I don’t think there are single people who are in desperate need of housing who ever move from maybe 30 or 35 people on the wait-list. So we need more public housing in general, but I think in Yellowknife particularly we need to look at public housing for single people, and I would encourage the Housing Corp to look again outside the box and consider something innovative but that is going to be relatively cheap but also to serve the needs of our single people in Yellowknife. It’s an issue in other communities; we’ve heard that from Members. There’s also the issue about just the need for more public housing units period, but I want to emphasize that we need units for our singles.
The other major concern for me is seniors housing. We have, and I’m not sure if we’ve had the numbers out there, but certainly there have been several studies that have been done in the last number or months or certainly over the last year, which indicate a huge increase in the number of seniors in the NWT. That number is going to increase, I think, 100 percent to 150 percent across the NWT, but in Yellowknife that number is liable to increase three times, 300 percent. We need to, whether it’s the Housing Corp or whether it’s the Housing Corp in conjunction with other departments, we need to not look into this but start to make some progress on this problem. By that I mean providing some sort of housing for our seniors. We have a fair amount of housing already, I appreciate that, but where I’m more concerned is the lack of housing and it’s going to be even worse as the years go by for seniors who can no longer
stay in their home. I support the concept of Aging in Place. It’s something that I think is very valuable and I think most seniors, most elders if they can, if they’re still physically able, if they’re mentally capable, want to stay in their own home and they want to stay there as long as they possibly can, but there comes a point in time when they can no longer stay in their own home for one reason or another. At that point they need to be put into a housing situation where they have professional care where they have people who can look after them. There’s graduated elements of that care. Some people need more care than others, but we do not have in the NWT, and particularly in Yellowknife, we do not have that space available now, particularly for seniors who need to be looked after, so to speak, and who can’t stay in their own home.
It would be something that I really strongly encourage the Housing Corporation to act on yesterday. I was going to say sooner than later, but this is something which is an urgent need and needs to be actioned as soon as possible.
Certainly, the organization in Yellowknife, the Avens Society or the Avens Group, they have put a great deal of housing in place for Yellowknife seniors, but it also serves NWT seniors as well. Aven Manor and Aven Cottages are not just for Yellowknife members. If they are residents, they serve residents across the territory. Both of those facilities are full and both of those facilities have very long wait-lists.
I think I have stressed it twice already and I’m going to stress it again, Mr. Chair, seniors housing for those who can no longer look after themselves is an urgent need, and I hope the corporation will work with other departments to get it done. Thank you.