Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As a small community MLA, in the past I have blasted Yellowknife, but today I want to commend them. I was pleased to see the City of Yellowknife address the needs of the homelessness with their Housing First initiative. They have developed a five-year strategy to deal with the homeless, especially with the youth.

In my Nahendeh riding and throughout the other regions of our NWT, there is a need to increase the amount of housing units and even homelessness shelter complexes, much like Yellowknife has planned. In Fort Simpson there are over 30 single people homeless and on the housing list waiting for units. There are individuals on that list that have been there for about seven years. As our young population ages and starts young families, they too are now looking for accommodations and places to live. There is a private market there, but one developer has about 12 to 14 units that are close to being condemned, and then where would those families go? Fort Simpson is a regional centre and people from the surrounding communities do migrate to Fort Simpson looking for work and also increasing the pressures for a place to live.

I have been in contact with the NWT Housing Corporation to work with the leadership of Fort Simpson in addressing this issue, also in finding a way to use their available programming and that of the Anti-Poverty Strategy to make an impact on increasing available public units and establishing a homelessness shelter.

Mr. Speaker, today I’m calling on our government and the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation in offering all their resources in addressing this situation.

I will be asking questions later to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation about our Homelessness Strategy and what resources we have to address these regional centre concerns. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.