Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people of Paulatuk are sick and tired of problems they are having with the Housing Corporation. I am really wondering if the Minister is going to get to the bottom of it. Come to the community with the housing officials and get the job done.
Right now things are simply a mess. People make payments, but those payments get reported on the rent statements that come from Inuvik. People complain about it, they’re treated poorly by Housing staff or get no answers at all. There’s no excuse for this, Mr. Speaker.
Most of the problems started at Education, Culture and Employment when they took over housing. Rent income assessments are slow to get done, people are getting the rent shock of their lives when the rent was set to the maximum. They could only fall behind and in a few months they’re thousands of dollars in arrears. So what happened? People tried to correct the problem, they’d get nowhere. Next they got discouraged and now they ignore the problem. Eventually some of them had to turn to income support, where the system forced people to go to income support who had never had income support in their lives. No wonder they’re upset, Mr. Speaker.
Now the assessments and record collection are controlled by the Housing Corporation. I expected to see things change for the better. I thought the LHOs would be able to straighten out the arrears and I hoped the Housing Corporation would reach the tenants and do the right thing. So far nothing has happened, Mr. Speaker.
I want the Minister to come back to Paulatuk with his staff and get down to work and get the answers from our last visit. They need to be answered, Mr. Speaker. All the questions that the community asked have to get answered.
Mr. Speaker, I’ll be asking the Minister questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
