Mr. Speaker, I too support this motion. You know, when -- it is a priority of our Assembly. I know the Minister has stated that they will -- they're going to put a hundred homes on the ground, you know, and I think there was some -- in our mandate, there's, you know, transferring of homes to our residents within that stock. At this time I guess, you know, where we are in that, I don't know. That's something I guess that we can -- we'll get back from the Minister.
Mr. Speaker, I also know in my community, when Inuvik was built, it was built in half. You had half of the community that was built for the federal employees that had all running water. And then you had my riding, the other half, which we had 5, 12s and pump out, and no running water. My constituency is the largest -- the residents in my -- like, in my constituency are where Inuvik Housing Authority has the greatest amount of housing units.
Growing up in that community, I too, like my colleague, know of many families who have raised their children, their grandchildren, you know, and now some of them even have great grandchildren raised in those same housing units. They have paid for these houses in threefold, you know.
So, you know, when the Member decided to bring this motion forward, you know, to push -- to make sure that this is hurried up in this government, one of the things that really struck me was how many of our residents have already paid for these homes.
You know, we talk about how we can only -- in the Northwest Territories, Housing Corporation can only have so many units that we can operate. So where are we and how are we doing this, that we asking our residents do they want to own this home, do they want to take this home over, you know. I've never heard of that going on in my community. I've heard of people, you know, raising their families, then their children grow up and then like some of the other colleagues is then they're moved. Then they're moved into a smaller unit where they -- the multigenerational way of life for most aboriginal people, we can't bring our kids back home. We don't have room to bring our grandchildren into our home now.
So this is a way of when we talk about multigenerational homes, some of these bigger units in my community were built in the 60s, in the 70s, you know. And I know Housing has kept upkeep in a lot of these units.
And that's the other thing too, is when we're transferring these homes we need to make sure that they're taken care of and they're transferred in a condition that the homeowner is not having to pay for many upgrades or needs before doing this.
But as I said, I really support this motion. I know even our Premier has said when she bought her first home, the pride that she felt of owning that home. Even though it wasn't the biggest home, it was her home. So, you know, this goes a long way for people to have that sense of worth and this is -- that sense of pride that this is my home.
You know, we've always heard of many of our Aboriginal leaders talk about how in the past the federal government promised people to come off the land, and we'll give you a house. Well, we gave you housing and then we kick you out when your family gets smaller or you get too old and you move them around. Like the Member from Monfwi has stated, this is their home and then they're moved somewhere else, you know. And so that sense, you know, that loss of the home. So especially in the small communities when there's not a lot of housing to go around.
So I just want to give my support, and that's why I second this motion, so that we can hurry up with our plan to do this work and that we get it done in the life of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.