Masi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for Minister of housing. So I want to ask the Minister what specific measure is Housing NWT taking to support elders with language barriers, not just elders, but there's others, vulnerable, with language barriers who struggle to navigate automated phone systems and remote offices? Thank you.
Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I recognize that there is many communities in the Northwest Territories where elders do have language barriers and many times English is not their first language. In terms of the Monfwi riding in the Tlicho region, we do have three staff that regularly go into the riding and meet with constituents or tenants for Housing NWT, but they also provide a translator for that work as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, has Housing NWT considered placing a dedicated housing officer or position from the North Slave office in one of the Tlicho communities to improve accessibility and communication for elders and other vulnerable residents? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And again, recognizing the number of concerns that we have from the Tlicho region and Monfwi riding that these discussions could be -- we could have internal discussions, but we can also talk to Tlicho government. We do have a memorandum of agreement with Tlicho government. So this could be a discussion item with the Tlicho government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Final supplementary. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So what is Housing NWT's plans to address the growing waitlist of 140 people in the Tlicho region, and how does it prioritize elders and unhoused people in urgent need of housing? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A huge question, because this is the type of question that I asked Council of Leaders in Ottawa when the Minister, the federal Minister, Gregor Robertson was attending the Council of Leaders.
Considering the waitlist, considering we have over 900 families on the waitlist, considering we have probably 140 of them in Behchoko alone, how do we address housing needs across the Northwest Territories? One thing we need to do is we need to work in collaboration, and this is what I spoke to with Indigenous leaders at the table, is we need to work in collaboration, we need to communicate, we need to work together, because the GNWT, Northwest Territories government, we can't do this alone. Like, we've provided $150 million over the next three years for housing and for public and social housing. That's going to give us about 300 units, and we're going to fix about 500 other units through renovations and modernization techniques. But we still have, according to our Territorial Housing Needs Assessment, another thousand units that are required. So the efforts of this Assembly, plus the efforts of Indigenous governments, plus the efforts of the federal government, who recently announced Build Canada Homes -- and with that Build Canada Homes, there was an announcement to include transitional and supportive housing which is really critical because we're finding, as Housing NWT, many people are not ready to move into their own unit, but with a supportive living component, they can be successful.
So that's what I'm hoping for every riding, for every region, moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister responsible for Housing NWT. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
