Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I’m going to outline the convoluted process that our constituents who live in social housing must go through when attempting to pay their rent. These are the actual experiences of one of my able-bodied constituents in Hay River and does not take into account the additional struggles that are faced by the elderly, handicapped, or those who do not live close to the downtown core.

Mr. Speaker, first you have to go to Northland Utilities and pay your power bill, as proof must be submitted at the time your rent is calculated. Then you have to walk over to the ECE office with your pay stubs and have your rent calculated. Unfortunately, the employee who calculates the rent is not always there, so it can take up to two weeks to have your rent calculated. The ECE office is then supposed to fax the rent calculation over to the housing office in a timely fashion. But this does not always happen. However, Mr. Speaker, my constituent did tell me that the housing authority is at least very timely in sending you reminder letters that your rent is due on the first of every month and when you cannot get your rent calculated by ECE, when you figure that the information may have been sent or when you have confirmed the receipt by telephone, you can then walk down the street a couple of blocks to the housing office and if you’re lucky the information has arrived from ECE and they can tell you how much your rent is going to be that month. Unfortunately, since the housing office doesn’t accept cheques or have a debit machine, a person must then be prepared to pay cash on the spot, get a money order, or make a trip to the bank. If ECE hasn’t managed to get the required information to the housing association, the only way that you can stay out of arrears with housing is to pay what you paid the previous month and do an adjustment later when the rent calculation information finally arrives from ECE.

Mr. Speaker, this is a monthly source of aggravation to our constituents in social housing. I realize that there are growing pains associated with the transfer of any program, but if a program does not work in the second largest community in the Northwest Territories, I cannot imagine what is going on in the rest of the Territories and in the small communities.

Clearly, Mr. Speaker, there is a need to streamline the process and make it more user friendly. For example, just installing debit machines in the housing authority offices would make it somewhat easier for the clients. Having the ECE office attended on a regular basis would make it easier for the clients.

Since my constituent’s case…I don’t know what that means, but anyway. The bottleneck appears to be with ECE and I will have questions for that Minister at the appropriate time today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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