Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My riding has the highest percentage of households in core need in the Northwest Territories. There have been some wins, but we are losing ground in other areas like an independent appeals mechanism, maintenance program for elders, mould. One of my constituents finally got access to a home repair program after fighting for seven years, Mr. Speaker, and that’s great news. But after seven years of fighting, others still don’t have access. My constituents are frustrated. There is no appeal process. They appeal to the person who told them no in the first place. It’s hard on the clients and it’s particularly hard on the staff. We need to create a way for clients who are not happy with the program or arrears to plead their case and have somebody review it.
The Minister has announced that the Housing Corporation would launch an appeals process on April 1, 2011. I would like to see some program detail on how it would work, especially to address program eligibility and appealing old arrears. A lot of constituents are refused the program because of arrears, so sometimes they run into serious immediate maintenance issues but no support is available to them because of this.
Last week I talked about how an elder found himself in such a situation. We need to reinstate a seniors maintenance care program to stop these situations from happening. A seniors maintenance care program would go a long way to improving the condition of our public housing units. We’re still short housing units in many communities. Many units in my riding are inadequate because of black mould. People come to me saying they have respiratory problems caused by mould in their units. We could look at ways to address this issue through our Small Communities Employment Program to get workers into these homes to do some cleaning.
The Housing Corporation should also consider mould-free construction techniques in their designs. I’m pleased with the front-line workers in my region, but I think we can make progress in Nahendeh. If we address these issues, I think we’ll see a drop in the number of households in core need. Our people are worth it, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
