Thank you very much.
First I want to mention that the National Aboriginal Housing Association member corporations administer some 10,000 units of rent-geared-to-income housing across Canada. This housing exists in most major cities.
One always wonders how the work of national associations translates into housing for people at the local level. This is particularly important, so I wanted to briefly mention the work of the Gignul Non-Profit Housing Corporation here in the city of Ottawa as an example of how we operate and of what we do to try to make assisted and affordable housing more accessible to aboriginal women.
Gignul has been in operation since 1985 and administers 162 units of rent-geared-to-income housing in 73 buildings across the former five municipalities that now make up Ottawa. It also administers a seniors' lodge that is home to a number of seniors here in the city.
In looking at our application process, we try to give priority where priority is necessary. Because we have an active waiting list of about 200 people and a period of time of at least a year to wait for housing, we prioritize our housing. Over the last few years, we've prioritized our housing to try to address the needs of single-parent mothers and also the needs of students who are enrolled in advanced education. We do have a point system that prioritizes on the basis of need.
The result of this process is that, of the tenants we now house, 52% are women: single women and/or single women with children. So there is a direct relationship to the effort, and we're trying to make that work for us.
We're very collaborative. We're linked to the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition and we work closely with the urban aboriginal strategy to try to ensure that the resources dedicated to and available for the area are used effectively. This has been very useful for us in terms of establishing a type of community governance.