Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the need for safe affordable and well-built housing has been the North's primary social challenge for decades and is consistently identified by Assembly standing committees as a root issue at the core of NWT social challenges.

Levels of government have spent over 60 years trying to house Northerners. Historically, territorial homeownership programs helped low income families access mortgages and home repair programs. These programs were introduced decades after the federal government's housing programs pushed homeownership through the Matchbox Home Housing Loan Program and the Northern Rental Purchase Program for residents to purchase old rental stock.

What we have now is a high number of homeowners created by government homeownership programs who now deal with high mortgage arrears and houses that require thousands of dollars in repair. But these homeowners are sounding alarm bells as the houses they live in require major repairs in communities with limited access to trades people and high costs to bring in contractors.

Housing repair needs are not exclusive to privately owned homes. The government's public housing stock also has a long list of required housing maintenance.

This past week, my colleague from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh asked the housing Minister to provide a detailed housing assessment to bring homes in his riding out of core need. The Minister pointed to community housing plans as a solution to "look at what communities want to plan and what they want delivered in their communities."

But Mr. Speaker, the community housing plans identified existing housing, additional housing infrastructure needs, and the barriers faced within each community. Along with its three community housing plans, the NWT Housing Corporation published five-year action plans.

The Whati action plan contains a target to inventory all private housing to identify the number of units with major and minor repairs. The deadline for the target is year 2, or 2021, and does not include public housing infrastructure. So the requested detailed housing assessment for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh is years away, Mr. Speaker.

But Mr. Speaker, that doesn't mean that we are years away from action. Concerns raised through the Whati housing plan identified access to qualified local home repair tradespeople as one of the community's biggest challenges and the community requested education supports on home maintenance, paperwork, and money management.

The Minister is right - listening to communities, what communities want, is key. But the foundation of that has been made clear through discussions, reports, and conversations in this House. People want safe affordable adequate and suitable House and they are asking for the training to be part of the solution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.