Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to continue the conversation that the Member for Thebacha started today in regards to homelessness, and I'd like to specifically focus on youth and specifically youth who are exiting the care of the government and who are entering homelessness.
Mr. Speaker, given the disproportionate representation of youth from or in the child and family services system experiencing homelessness in the NWT, will health and social services provide a dedicated navigator to solely provide wraparound care to youth who have aged out of care or are transitioning to independent living? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I remember the Member's statement, and I wanted to localize the number of youth who have applied for support services agreements related to their housing situation. In 2021, that was 18 youth who applied for that out of a total of 68 youth who were in that program.
What I want to say is that as the Member may remember, the child and family services action plan is currently bridging between two plans but the new plan, which will be publicly released in August, will have a dedicated focus on youth supports as you might expect. And as part of this plan, the department is considering piloting specialized positions which will, of course, be subject to funding through the business plan process. So we're interested in the Member's recommendation as we work to provide better services to youth who are homeless. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that from the Minister. Mr. Speaker, other jurisdictions have acknowledged the challenges of youth exiting government care by creating legislation, policies, and resources to directly help youth transition from care. There are some creative solutions out there that help address this. One example that I wanted to highlight in the House today is agedout.com. It's a web page dedicated to BC young adults who have aged out of government care, and I really highly recommend people take a look at it.
Even within this website, Mr. Speaker, youth can apply for low income housing. The application is right there online, among many other resources. So I'm wondering if the GNWT will work with Home Base YK and the Foster Family Coalition to build resources for youth aging out of care to strategically stop the cycle into homelessness? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our concern is for youth who have some interaction with child and family services. I think the youth homelessness issue is bigger than that, and it does require a number of parties to come to the table to try and understand the scope of the problem and what the solutions are. I know that there are some resources available now. I'm not familiar with where the gaps are, but that is something that would obviously be useful not only here in Yellowknife, with the largest homelessness population, but in other regional centres. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question was specific to youth aging out of care. Even when I was putting together my questions for today, I actually spent a lot of time looking around on the health and social services website. It's information about what youth have access to as far as funding support, access to housing; none of this is available online. So any youth who is exiting care that wants autonomy in being able to figure out what services they have available, this doesn't exist right now. And it certainly doesn't exist in a venue that is targeted directly to these youth. And so that is exactly what I'm asking for, is resources specific to youth aging out of care.
My next question, though, Mr. Speaker, and maybe the Minister will want to speak to this in the same breath is will health and social services commit to including a provision in the upcoming revamp, or bill that's being brought forward in the next Assembly, to the Child and Family Services Act that specifically calls for health and social services to offer suitable housing options as a mandatory clause for youth exiting care. So will they turn around and offer a provision of suitable housing for youth who are transitioning from care of the government? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will certainly make a point of looking at the website agedout.com.
In terms of the Child and Family Services Act, we have received recommendations from the Member and from the social development committee. I'm not in a position to make a commitment that binds the 20th Assembly to what will be in the revision of the Child and Family Services Act. But, of course, we will be doing a transition document and I can include it in that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final short supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Short is not my skill set, Mr. Speaker. No, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that we can't bind the next government but this is an opportunity to really call on the government to focus on housing and addressing youth homelessness for youth aging out of care in the legislative proposal that comes forward from the government. And I think that this is something that's needed when asking - you know, we heard a question today about whether or not this homelessness strategy is actually going to solve homelessness. This is something very specific and very strategic that the government can do to address homelessness. And so I highly recommend doing this.
I guess what I'd like to leave this with is will the government, as part of their business plan that's coming forward in August, include a youth aging out of care focused portal where youth can actually access resources, information, applications, in order to have control in their lives as they're aging out of care and understand what they are able to access in order to make that transition smooth and successful? Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that would be a great topic to bring up with the 20th Assembly who will be doing the next business plan for the 20242025 fiscal year. I think that some of this is a coordination effort. I know that Home Base Yellowknife does enable people to get into leases with landlords and sets youth up in their own housing. I'm not sure whether there is enough of that to make a difference. I think that some youth need significant wraparound resources to be successful as tenants. And so I think all of those are very worthy of consideration. I think for youth as, with any other person, that having housing stabilizes their situation and enables them to deal with some fundamental issues that may be disrupting their lives and to put them on a path to greater success, and I think that that's what we all want. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
