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DEH GAH GOT'IE/FORT PROVIDENCE - Bertha Landry doesn't want to lose her home because her husband is getting his education.

"If we can't find a way to make enough in the next few months we're going to have to give up the house," she said.

Landry's husband is in his final year of a two-year Natural Resource Technology diploma offered at the Aurora College campus in Fort Smith. He is expected to graduate in April, but if he doesn't pay up the remaining balance on his rent from this semester he won't be allowed to complete the program.

The couple pays approximately $1,900 in rent monthly, $1,400 for their house in Fort Providence and approximately $500 for his residence in Fort Smith.

"We haven't been paying his total rent because we can't afford it," she said. "We've been paying a portion of it.

"We fought really hard to get the house we are living in now and if things don't turn around, if we don't get assistance I might have to move back to Fort Smith," Landry said

"He works as a renewable officer in Fort Providence but is out on education leave. He gets a partial of his pay somewhere between 60 to 70 per cent. With truck, credit card and bill payments, they are financially strapped.

"They said we make too much money," Landry said, referring to the Deh Gah Got'ie First Nations Training Authority. "We had to do a budget before they could look at our application and they said we make too much to get funding."

When she approached the band office about the application, Chief Berna Landry said it wasn't looking good.

When contacted about Bertha Landry's application and the program offering funding for education training,

Chief Berna Landry and contacts in the Training Authority department did not return calls.