It's called the Aspen Apartments, and it's a 36-unit apartment building. It has been empty since 2019. They were looking to transfer it to a local NGO, but the way the transfer program works, the NGO was going to have to put $4.5 million on their books as a liability. For the NGO, that just wasn't an option, because it was going to impact their borrowing limits, so it didn't go through. Then COVID hit, and the federal government transferred the asset to the territorial government to use right away, from March 2020 until the following March. Following that, our request is that the federal government look to transfer it to a local NGO again and to not go back to use it as federal employee housing, because our private market here is sufficient and federal employees make enough to rent on the private market.
In regard to homelessness and the need for both affordable and supportive housing, with COVID, we were in lockdown. Nobody outside of one's household was supposed to be visiting you, so a lot of the hidden homeless really became obvious as people weren't welcome to come to couch surf and stay with friends and relatives. Therefore, an increase in shelter space is required. The worry is that if community transmission were to happen in Yellowknife, as it did in Nunavut—in Arviat, with its households of 10-plus people—all of a sudden the numbers could skyrocket in just a matter of days. Therefore, it's really important.
It's tough to get those numbers, because with hidden homelessness and couch surfing and the dangers that come with that is the fact that you're putting yourself in vulnerable situations. The housing is really important, and we have 15 families on the wait-list to get housing. That means kids aren't able to get a good education and the stability they need to be good contributors to the economy in the future.
Across the country, I think we all know.