Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following four documents entitled "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 547-18(3): Sexual Abuse in Amateur Sport"; "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 629-18(3): Heating Issues at Joe Greenland Centre"; Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 686-18(3): Northwest Territories Consumer Rights and Protections"; and "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 697-18(3): Northwest Territories and Nunavut Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned in the last answer, we are going to look at and do some research on the options that would be available. Once we look at those options and do the research, we would share it with standing committee, and we would share it with Members.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will have to get back to the Member on the detail. I did mention that, since April 1, 2016, there have been 183 units that we have demolished or sold. The detail that I can give the Member at this moment is that, during 2018-2019, we did sell 20 units and we demolished 20 more.

We are still continuing to work with communities and working with our residents in terms of findings ways that we can get them into a home ownership program or a lease-to-own program. I can get that detail from the Housing Corporation, and I will share it with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker...

In the last session that we had, we had a similar question, and I did mention that we had six communities that we were looking forward to developing community housing plans across the Northwest Territories. We set that as the goal for our first year.

Since we have had the Housing Summit and since we have been reaching out to leaders across the territory, we have about 10 community housing plans in place, and we will continue to work with our leadership and our community NGOs. I will continue to encourage our leadership across the NWT, whether it is NGOs or whether it is mayors and chiefs, to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From data that we have compiled since January, there are approximately 270 households making a significant amount of money, about $5,000 a month. Our local housing organizations are working with some of these owners, the ones that are in higher incomes, to explore home ownership and support options with our department to see how we can address those.

On the other note, we do have a unit disposal plan, where we have sold about 20 units in 2018-2019. We have also demolished 20 units across the territory where we can build new units, whether it is public housing that needs...

The action plan in the document Toward Level Ground lists a number of housing programs and initiatives that I have brought up and that previous Housing Ministers have brought up during the life of this government to address the housing issues. We continue to work on that. We want to create partnerships with other leadership across the territories and our stakeholders and NGOs, and the GNWT has made a commitment to assist 250 core need households every year during this period. We have been meeting those targets, and we have been giving that information to committee. We will continue to do that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As committee is well aware, we have had discussions in committee on where we are with this funding. We are developing a three-year action plan, and we did say and committed that we would share that action plan with the committee. We can work on providing where we are with that action plan and the partnerships that we have with CMHC. As committee is aware, we did have some committee members come to Inuvik for the Housing Summit, and we did also hear other innovative ideas and other ways that we can address the housing issue in the Northwest Territories.

We will look at...

At this time, I don't have a timeline. Coming out of the Housing Summit, we are developing a report that we are going to share with our leadership, that we are going to share with our stakeholders, and that we are going to work with people who came to the Housing Summit. That is a priority, everything that came out of the Housing Summit, where we had leaders from 24 of our communities across the Northwest Territories. We want to make sure that we know what the next steps are. At this moment, we don't have a timeline, but we will look into that research. That is something that we are committed...

As I mentioned, I was really appreciative that standing committee was able to attend the Housing Summit in Inuvik and listen to some of the concerns that were brought up, whether it was by industry, whether it was by leadership, or whether it was by non-government organizations. We do know that accessing home insurance can be challenging and very costly in some of our communities. However, I would just like Members, residents, and our groups to know that insurance costs are established by insurance providers, and we do not have the ability to adjust those rates, Mr. Speaker.

However, as noted...

We did make a commitment that we would look at trying to demolish and sell units, about 50 a year, and we are reaching and going over those targets. As we develop these community plans with leadership and people in the community, that is something that we are going to have to address. We don't want to be the ones who tell communities what they need and what they want. It has to be a responsibility between leadership from the communities and us, working together, as I mentioned, to address the housing priorities; and yes, we will be making that a priority. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.