Residents of Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc have until Monday, Nov. 9 to fill out a survey on affordable housing.

Chief Rosanne Casimir tells NL News they want to collect updated information about what the housing needs are, which will help improve current housing conditions on TteS lands.

“Right now many of our homes and our rental units on the reserve here are either overcrowded and definitely not enough of,” she said. “And of course, with the limited housing that we do have, we need a variety of housing options to meet everybody’s needs.”

Casimir says the results will help look at what kind of housing is needed allowing staff to update current policies as needed.

“Its been probably about 18 to 19 years since we’ve had any new social housing built so its really important that we start looking at that and start meeting those needs, addressing our very own homeless action plan,” Casimir added. “And of course, not only that, its the meeting the housing needs of our membership.”

So far she says there has been good feedback that has come in since the survey was launched. Tk’emlúps staff will gather that information and provide a briefing note and some housing recommendations to Chief and Council.

TteS Housing Manager Sharon Gottfredson says people are not required to participate in the survey and people can also choose to not answer questions they do not want to. She also says all personal information will be kept confidential, noting that while individual responses may be quoted in the results, the source will not be identified.

Residents looking to find the survey can go here.