There are homeownership opportunities in Yellowknife, our large capital. The homeless assistance program, I can't remember the acronym for it, does help people try to get into their own homes. I'm trying to think if it was income support; I've had too many portfolios, now. Housing does the housing supplement; the rent supplement program is with housing. So the rent supplement program is with the Housing Corporation.
I was in social work for over 20 years and working in Yellowknife with homeless people, and I never even knew about the program, so I think that what we've done wrong, and, again, the government, I've said that for the last four years, the worst thing about the government is we're bad communicators. We're just so busy trying to keep on top of the water that we forget to get things communicated. I think that the rent supplement program needs to be promoted more, out there more, because that helps the majority of middle-income and lower-income families, and then the rent for income support needs to be utilized more for low-income families. Again, the federal government is supposed to be coming with another initiative that they will be providing housing support. Hopefully, that will come through fairly soon, and, if not, then we have an obligation to step up.
So there are housing needs in Yellowknife. There are huge housing needs in Yellowknife. We have to look at expanding our rent supplement, but we also have housing needs in every single small community, and we can't forget the small communities. Because Yellowknife has 100 wait list; the small community, one community might only have 10 people on a waiting list, but those 10 people on the wait list might all be living in one home, and so that is the balance that we always have to meet. We will never have enough to do everything in four years, but we have to start chipping away. Thank you, Madam Chair.