Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I get started, I'd like to send thoughts and prayers home. Today they're laying my Uncle Henry Steen to rest. So thoughts and prayers are with my family back home.
Mr. Speaker, I've said in this House many times before, housing in Nunakput faces major issues. Residents in my riding deal with the highest cost of living in the territory. We face overcrowding. We don't have enough homes. And the homes that we do have are in need of major repairs.
In Nunakput, the riding as we know, 13 percent of our homes are overcrowded. 28 percent of our homes need major repairs. 25 percent of our homes are in core need. Mr. Speaker, I have constituents who have put blankets on their floors in the winter so the snow wouldn't come in from the door and the windows. So it's very confusing to me, Mr. Speaker, when residents in my riding want to purchase a housing unit that the corporation doesn't fast track these requests. These units in the Housing Corporation are barely maintaining with the wind and the snow blowing right through homes in the winter. If a resident wants to purchase a unit, shows interest, the Housing Corporation should make it happen.
It's been said in this House many times the Northwest Territories is in a state of housing crisis. One solution to housing is to increase the number of our homeowners. So it's very troubling for me, Mr. Speaker, and my constituents in my riding, that have been waiting, in cases for years, to advance homeownership options.
I have a couple in Sachs Harbour who have been waiting for two years since they submitted their complete application to the Minister and her staff in Inuvik on December 2020, an agreement to enter a renttoown housing option. Since December 2020, the couple's been waiting and paying rent with no assurance that the Housing Corporation is under the renttoown agreement. My constituents already the highest cost of living in the Northwest Territories. Now the local housing organization in Inuvik appears to be creating more financial hardship by delaying longterm housing solutions for this young family in Sachs Harbour.
Mr. Speaker, this is not only one example. There is a constituent in Paulatuk who has have been waiting for almost six months for an answer from the local housing organization. Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable. I will have questions for the Minister of Housing at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. Members' statements. Member for Kam Lake.
