Thank you, Madam Chair. I too want to address the homelessness initiatives and especially homeless shelters. Fort Smith doesn't have a homeless shelter at this point. There was a proposal that went forward. It was a pilot project for five tiny homes. A solution, not an ongoing expense to the homelessness initiative. And yet it never came to fruit because I don't know who decided it wasn't a good project, but I think that the Indigenous group that actually had the homeless shelter pilot project knows what they're doing. They have a proven record.

And the former Minister of housing could attest to that. And the amount of monies that are, you know, like even -- and now we're having the tiny homes done in Fort Good Hope or somewhere in the Minister's riding. So it wasn't good enough for my riding but it's okay for some other riding. I don't agree with the way things are done sometimes, and I'm very vocal on how things are done. And to have that Wilfred Laurier Foundation, or whatever I read in some documents somewhere, involved in this homelessness whatever emergency -- or the tiny homes is also not okay. I want the Minister to clarify exactly what that is. And just a short answer would be great so I have time for other questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Fort Good Hope has a K'asho Got'ine Housing Society. They have the direct relations with CMHC. They receive their own federal funding. They've funded their own community housing plan. This is a community that has taken housing to a whole new level. They've owned it, and they're the ones who are administering their tiny home project. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

So we also have $30 million that was put over by the federal monies to address some of the issues with housing. Is some of that money -- you know, the money is really important to the people of the Northwest Territories and to the Indigenous governments. I'm wondering if that $30 million will -- if the Minister would consider that the $30 million go per capita to each Indigenous government so that they could run their own makework program to repair all the houses in the communities and regional centres? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And we've already have issues maintaining our own public housing units. This will be going towards our own repairs for public housing. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

Madam Chair, just before Christmas there was an issue with a mother and a daughter that were told they had to leave their housing unit, and it was all boarded up. This is just a couple weeks before Christmas. And now they're couch surfing on mats and I was going -- I might table the whole thing before session ends. And then the place is all boarded up. The Indigenous government has agreed to go in and try and to correct the situation because they're members of one of the Indigenous groups back in Fort Smith.

We created that situation. And then we come back and say oh, we're going to fix this up and we're going to do that, but when people are at the 11th hour, no matter how -- what kind of condition the house was in or -- and the mother, who is almost 90 years old, gave -- and she's also a senior, the one that was kicked out of the house with the daughter and they're couch surfing. But it's okay. It's okay to throw people out and become homeless. And that's not the policy that we as Ordinary MLAs want to see, and I want to know how that's going to be corrected. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Receiving the $30 million for the next two years, this is something that we did not expect. We do have a lot of our units throughout the Northwest Territories that are either abandoned or very poorly maintained. And this is an opportunity where we're able to address issues such as these. We don't have the budget to be repairing every single unit throughout the territory. The $30 million over two years is what's going to help us get to that point of repairing our units. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

So the policy of the NWT Housing Corporation is that you make people homeless, you forget about them, and hopefully that nobody complains? And, you know, these are people that would never get through the front door. And it's really -- makes me want to understand how people think overall and who makes the policy and how it is implemented and why are people that are disenfranchised, have addiction problems, are poor, and we throw them out of their unit just before Christmas?

They're now couch surfing, they're homeless, and where do they go? You know, it's a really unusual situation, and I'm sure it happens everywhere and nobody says anything about it. But you know what? When I got elected, I wanted to make sure that the people that were never heard are heard, and that's my job here, especially the people in my riding of Thebacha. And for the broader South Slave and the people of the NWT, because there's many like that. And this Minister and this department continually does the wrong thing, and I want to know when it's going to be corrected. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the Member for the comments as well too. I hear where the Member is coming from. We deal with a lot of complex issues within Housing, and it's not our priority to be evicting people out of these units.

But then we also have to be guided by policies in order to maintain that we have adequate services. But then through the strategy as well too, I'm hoping to see major improvement with our client service, with our communication, and with our program delivery, also recognizing that we are a social program and we need different resources and we need different supports.

The clientele we are working with today is not the same clientele we dealt with 20 years ago. Now we have a different situation in the Northwest Territories. And I'm hoping that as we go forward, we're able to fund certain positions and being able to really take and address housing differently as we move forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I'm not going to ask any more questions but, you know, it's a disgrace that we have private industry who abide by law to give -- they even have to give notice when they want to evict people. But the housing corporation just goes up, boards the house up, all their belongings are inside, throws them out before Christmas, and then it's okay, you know.

So when government is saying yeah, you could do this and then the other hand is doing something else. And private industry, those are their own homes. Those are their own units, whether they be apartments or single units, are told that they have to abide by the Tenancy Act. But yet our government and the NWT Housing Corp doesn't have to follow the Tenancy Act. That is unbelievable. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I'll take that as a comment. If you have no further comments, I'll move on to Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't also really have a lot of questions but I think I'd be remiss if I didn't comment a bit on some of the concerns I also have in echoing my colleagues.

Over the last few years, I've had an opportunity to become more familiar with people that are experiencing homelessness and in particular the youth. I don't think that anybody on the social development committee would argue that that sort of has been one of the reoccurring themes throughout all of the conversations, the engagement, the people that come to us, is this huge gap for youth and housing. Personally, I've worked with a youth where the department's response to me was well, if they don't want to go to the shelter, which we've already heard is full, then they need to find somewhere for themselves to live and in which case then the department would help them sort of set up that foster care or guardian-type situation.

And to me, it's just -- it's heartbreaking to watch this young person who so wants to do better in life and has come from just nothing, absolutely nothing, with no supports, trying to raise themselves up and do better through sport, through other things, and then just constantly hitting roadblocks and barriers at every opportunity. And I don't know how at 16-years-old this person continues to persevere because I know when I was 16, there's just no way that I would have been capable of advocating for myself, let alone, you know, actually following through on everything.

So I just wanted to stress the real importance here of the youth component and the youth piece and also echoing the concern around, you know, that sort of almost being that well, this person doesn't fit into this program or this policy and therefore there's nothing we can do. And it falls on everybody else to then pick up the pieces for that child. And as my colleague mentioned, it was extremely heartbreaking to go to sit and listen to young people talk about not even having their basic needs met and a place to lay their head at night.

And thinking back on the vulnerability of myself as a young woman, I can't even imagine not having my mother's home to go home to every night to sleep in and the choices that would have to be made in order to find a place to sleep and then add in -- I grew up at least in British Columbia where it was only the most minus five degrees outside; it was not minus 35, so I don't even know how some of these kids are making it through the night. And I feel that given the situation that we're going to see more and more youth, unfortunately, choosing the route of suicide as they feel hopeless.

I guess my last -- or my next comment is around just looking at the revised estimates for this area for the total contributions, that there has been no change from the 2022-2023 to the 2023-2024. Again, very disappointing and quite surprising given that this is the number one priority for us as MLAs and for all of us when the 19 of us first met, save a couple that have joined us since, and I know that they too also still feel very strongly about this given their statements in the House.

So I guess I'll ask a question around can the Minister commit to somehow, in the next while, increasing this amount of funding, whether that be through a supplementary appropriation for the emergency shelters, etcetera, or by giving a large donation to Home Base so that they can then build their second part of their complex? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll take that as a -- not as a comment but I'd like to bring that back to the department. I don't have an answer for the Member right now. Thank you.

Member for Great Slave.

Yeah, and I think that it's really one thing for the Minister to really keep in mind that if you do this piece now with these young people, you will reduce the number of people that are then homeless going forward in the future. So this is something where the return on investment here is so strong and so important and it's not just around housing; it's around mental health, physical health, all of that. So, again, just more of a comment but I do hope that the Minister recognizes that prevention is going to save us a lot more money than waiting for these kids to fall through the cracks. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister Chinna.