Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To those units that were affected, I know they were built by us and built to stand, but you can never predict when you can get 140-kilometre winds that are going to have an impact on, in some cases, our aging units, so moving forward, we need to address that. I know the Member asked questions in the House earlier this sitting, and as we move forward with our community housing plans and our relationship with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, these things do need to be taken in consideration because I know, in the last couple of years, Paulatuk in particular, the coastal...

Okay, I will try to be really quick. I know he answered quite a bit, but obviously one of the couple of things that we are doing is the lease-to-own program. We want to make sure that people who are in public housing can have that opportunity to lease to own, and then that would help us create more public housing inventory. We are also looking at the new home ownership program. Every year, we are doing 50 disposable units so that, when we demolish units, we are able to create more. The Member makes a good point. We want to create a market, but at the same time we don't want to disrupt some of...

We will commit to that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was a really good story on the young gentleman in Colville Lake. We do have programs for people who want to build their own homes. Obviously, we have to look at building codes, for one thing, and also tenants to provide some of their own funding to get the place up and running. Our district officers, who are technical and program staff, they are getting out to the communities. I know that, while they go through a couple of community tours, regional tours, that we did promote getting our district offices technical staff and program staff out to promote the programs...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left is our president and CEO of the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Tom Williams. On my right is Mr. Jim Martin, the vice president of finance and infrastructure services.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that's the emergency shelters program. Our thinking around that was to have all programs under one department so it will be easier for applications to be processed with our partnerships. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we would be willing to look at that on a case-by-case basis, obviously. I know that throughout the -- well, I'm wearing my other hat, there. We do have nine communities that are on the flood watch, as well as shoreline erosion, and we would look at it on a case-by-case basis. If the Member knows of any situations, I'd encourage him to let us know so we can look at addressing that. Thank you.

We could even do better than that. We can get our staff to reach out to the leadership right now. I know we have had some of our staff go into the community of Deline. We have met with Fort Good Hope leadership, as well, in terms of their housing plans. They are doing a good job. We have seen what was on the news recently in Colville Lake, and we want to support that. We want to let the leadership and community members know about the programs and services that we do provide and that they can access. We will commit to that, and we will actually reach out to the leadership ahead of the summit...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is correct. As Mr. Martin had referred to, we still have $33.7 million, and we will continue to make those payments since we took over the social housing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and as I mentioned, we'll continue to promote these programs through our communications strategy in terms of our office doing work with the district offices and with the LHOs. Further to the Member's questions, sometimes Housing is really the only game in town, when they need to pay those rental costs. Like I said, we're the only game in town in some cases, and it's something we will be looking at. As I said, we're doing a strategic renewal right now. We'll have that information out in April. Thank you, Mr. Chair.