Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we and our committee have been looking really hard in looking at this budget and so the first thing, our biggest challenge we're looking at was the elimination of the Transition Rent Supplement Program. We understand that this program has not met its goals, but this should be addressed. Instead of getting rid of the program, the goals should be looked at and, if it's not efficient, then maybe the fund should be allocated to different housing programs instead of being removed. That is very important to us. Housing is important, as we all know, and this has an impact on all our residents.
So by this Transition Rent Supplement Program being addressed and saying it's not being efficient, maybe the department should be looking at it and seeing how it can become more efficient; and if it's not going to do that, then maybe allocate the funds instead of getting rid of this program. So that is what committee has being trying to very much stress.
The other part of it was the CARE, and CARE is an important program. I mean, I understand when the government talks about it's a 10-year program and that, but there are lots of homes out there that need to be repaired and need to be addressed, especially our seniors. For our seniors, there are some challenges because, in my riding and hearing other people talk about it, is that the commitment to be in their forgivable loans seems to be a little bit more challenging for some of these seniors, and so this needs to be looked at.
So we looked at CARE as an opportunity for the government to actually increase it to help address our seniors and the residents, the people who have homes. Yes, we have lots of people who have accessed it, but there's still more people who have the opportunity to access this program, and if we're not going to help them we're going to have a huge deficit as we move forward, so the committee has stressed this important part of it.
On a personal note, in regard to housing, I'm not a big fan of modular homes; I've said that in the past. However, bringing the modular homes to be built in the North has had a huge impact on providing employment opportunities. We've had, to my understanding, up to 50 people being employed to help build these modular homes and other opportunities this company has been able to do. However, in saying that, we still need stick-built community-built homes in some of the communities.
Also, in regard to these modular homes that are brought in as market rents, some of these trailers or modular homes are not being used. In my riding, they sit vacant. I've had the opportunity to see some pictures of these homes, and they're starting to fall apart, and this is non-usage. So again, the corporation needs to address this. If they're going to be sitting there in these communities, then we should be utilizing them for homes so we can help the market rent.
Finally, my colleague here today talked about tiny homes, the small homes, and talked about the success of Deline, and there was a person here in town who was building these tiny homes that would have a huge impact on these single individuals, and I'm hoping that this corporation will start looking at this. I understand that there are land issues, and stuff like that, but if you build these things and provide this opportunity for them to have these homes in place, then I can guarantee you these communities would be willing to work with you to provide land and get these people in homes, which will help the homelessness, the couch surfing. There's a whole list of people there.
So I'm hoping that the Minister and the department -- I know it's not on here, but I hope you will bring it next year, because we need to put people in homes, and if we don't do it this way we're going to have struggles and we're going to continue to be doing the same. As the old saying goes if we continue to do the same thing we're going to get the same results, and that's just crazy. So I'm hoping that the Minister will look at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.