Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday was the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and today I want to focus on the need for housing to help people get out of poverty.
Housing provides the basis for productive, dignified lives. The ability to cook, wash, get adequate rest, be called for a job, having a place for children to study and families to enjoy leisure are huge challenges when there’s no place to call home.
Research proves that lack of housing can double or even triple the cost of government services from reliance on emergency room medicines and overnight shelters to income assistance and the justice system costs when some homeless people become desperate.
Experience across Canada is showing remarkable results when we put housing first. Calgary, Vancouver and other centres are showing huge improvements in social conditions and dramatic cost reductions. A National Housing First movement is growing.
The need is drastic. There were 137 names on the Yellowknife Housing Authority waiting list on September 22nd. There’s a waiting list of 500 names right across all our local housing authorities. Last week the YWCA received 10 calls for housing in one day. Rockhill Transitional Housing hasn’t had anything like it in 15 years of operation. Staff there say, “the size of the need scares us.”
Urgent action is needed, starting with better use of Housing Corporation stock. Public housing vacancy rates must drop to zero. We need Housing Corporation policies that enable families to purchase the many vacant home ownership units, or we should put these units into public housing.
Local housing authorities must repair damaged units and place them with tenants. The new Transitional Rent Supplement Program is a positive step, but many low-income residents are ineligible, like YWCA tenants and those renting rooms in landlord occupied homes. With our 0.8 percent vacancy rate in Yellowknife, people must turn to rooming houses and transitional housing; they shouldn’t be penalized for lack of housing choices.
We are making some progress. We’ve adjusted the rent to income ratio in public housing. Bailey House is up and operating and we are contributing to Betty House, but clearly a crisis is at hand.
As Members come to work here in the morning, we pass the homeless walking to town from their tents behind this building, and the waiting list for housing expands.
Winter is coming, people are suffering, and meeting their housing needs must come first.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
