Whitehorse Receives Help for Affordable Housing from Cmhc

We've been able to get funding through Canada's Economic Action Plan in order to renovate this half duplex into two living suites for our residents. Options For Independence is a non-profit society that was set up in 1999 for the purpose of providing housing for persons with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. There is a huge need in the community and in most northern communities as well, for good accommodations for people with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Just recently we purchased a half a duplex and we have been working with Yukon Housing to renovate and we are going to provide two more living suites for our residents. Well there is a need for this type of social housing. They need a safe place and they need also assistance in looking after their place, paying their rent, keeping it clean, cooking and so on and so forth. We have staff on duty - right now it is 15 hours a day. We are hoping to move to a 24 hour a day model to improve their quality of life as well as keep them safe. From Yukon Housing Corporation, they are receiving $50,000. The $20,000 from Canada's Economic Action Plan certainly made a big difference in allowing us to come in with the rest of the funds that were needed for repair. If they undertook all of the repairs with a mortgage loan, that mortgage loan would have to be repaid, that would impact on their month-to-month cash flow. That would make it very difficult for them to do the kind of repairs that needed to be done here. Although $20,000 may not seem like a lot of money, it was important in leveraging local and territorial funds. So that $20,000 was crucial in getting this renovation project up and going. We provided Yukon Housing Corporation with about $50 million over a couple of years under Canada's Economic Action Plan and they selected a variety of projects. The costs of operating residences are prohibitive and this is a system that is making it possible to provide this housing. We've got an option of purchasing the other side of the duplex and converting it as well to two living units. There are a number of families, parents who have desperately tried to find something for their adult children who can't look after themselves. This is going to make an incredible difference for them, to have that safe place to go home to, that they can have visitors but they have somebody there as well to support them in a system in doing all the things that they need to do there to help maintain a place of their own.