Caroline Cochrane

I apologize for the miscommunication. I can't really speak for the Department of Health and Social Services, and my colleague is not here today due to illness. What I can say is that we are committed to try to keep people within their communities as long as possible. However, there does come a point when the capacity of the community is such that people, some people, will need to be moved into long-term care. My commitment is, as long as we can keep people within their own homes, within their own communities, then as Minister of Housing I will do my best to make sure that we provide the...

Yes. The Minister does acknowledge that the best care for seniors and our people is to be able to be in their homes as long as possible without having to go to disturb that. There is a huge component that says wellness and individual mental health is linked to being able to stay in their own facilities. I just wanted to state that we will be looking at prioritizing seniors.

The federal government has given us within the next two years a budget of $1.5 million that we will be using. Then, within that, the NWT Housing Corporation for this coming fiscal year, we're going to be doing 63 senior...

Compassion is really important within the homeless population. I do adhere to the Housing First model, but I also recognize that within the North, we have other models that are successful, so I give credit to that. It's important to have a northern perspective on northern solutions. The final part to that question is absolutely yes, the units that we are going to be building for the semi-independent living will not be in the emergency shelter area. They are totally separate from the emergency shelter, and they will be independent units for homeless people, for chronic homeless people.

The Minister is committed to addressing homelessness. We have put forward our agreement to partner with the city of Yellowknife within their Housing First model of housing one person, hopefully within the next three years to get 20 people in.

However, coming from this community, I know that if we were to only sit back and support only one agency providing one model, it probably would not be the most efficient use of our funds. To house one person within the community would not make a significant dent, and the other model would provide for 30 people. I must say that the other model is following...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has made a commitment in its mandate to supporting elders by building more seniors’ supported independent living units and marketing maintenance, renovation, and mobility upgrades to help seniors age in place. I would like to advise Members that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is delivering on these commitments with five nine-unit seniors’ buildings in Aklavik, Fort Liard, Fort McPherson, Fort Good Hope, and Whati. In each of these buildings, eight units will be occupied by seniors, and one unit will...

The Department of Health and Social Services and the NWT Housing Corporation sit on a number of ministerial committees that we talk about various issues. Seniors are one of the populations that we talk within that. We want to make sure that the Housing Corporation provides these services to people as long as they can maintain their own care, and then when they get to a point where they can't, then we want to make sure that we have kind of as seamless as possible a transition into long-term care. Really working closely hand in hand is key to be able to facilitate proper care for our seniors in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are actually a number of programs. Of course, there is the SAFE program that addresses immediate safety needs. There is the CARE Minor that will address things like small renovations that need to be done, perhaps a rail in the bathroom, and then there is CARE Major that will address larger things that include things like ramps going up to access into the building, et cetera, so quite a variety of programs. I also want to mention that we are doing the community needs survey. Once that comes in, we may be changing our programs based on what the communities say that...

As stated, we are partnering with the City of Yellowknife on the strong advocacy of the couple of Yellowknife MLAs. Their RFP just closed today. We are not sure when it will be done, but they have promised us that their one individual will be housed within this fiscal year. As for the 30 individuals that we are working with, the construction will begin this summer, and, before the winter, that construction will be finished.

The actual amount of homeless people within Yellowknife is really a hard number to pin down, as I've stated before; however, the City of Yellowknife did do a point-in-time survey last year and they figure that 139 people were actually homeless within the city. I, of course, based on personal experience, would beg to differ. How many people are we going to help within the next time? When I was elected as Regular MLA and as Minister, my commitment was to listen, and I have listened to the MLAs within the Yellowknife region. A couple of our MLAs, Yellowknife MLAs, have been really adamant and...

All of the people that I'm talking about are actually chronic homeless. Within the partnership with the City of Yellowknife, they will be housing one chronic homeless person. They have $240,000 to put to the table for this initiative this year. As well, the GNWT is putting forward $150,000 to help them with this, for a total $390,000. For the 30 rooms that we're going to do, the semiindependent with the emergency shelters which are also working on a Housing First model, in fact, actually went down south to study the model, we will spend less than three times the amount, a onetime funding of...