Caroline Cochrane

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...

My awareness, right now in Hay River we're working with the Small Community Homelessness Fund in providing support to the Hay River Soup Kitchen, the Hay River committee for people with disabilities and the Family Support Centre. As I said, once we have been strategic in what we're doing in the capital area, then we'll be reaching out to the communities. One thing I should have said also is that we are building small units within other communities in the North, so we're not only focusing on Yellowknife. We are taking a holistic approach.

I can't say directly if there's any in Hay River. I will get back to the Member on that question. My background is in Yellowknife, so thirdparty housing providers are things like Rock Hill or the Bailey House or Lynn's Place places, that provide social housing to the communities and that we support them as well.

Anything outside of Yellowknife, actually, meets the definition of “small communities.” There are some projects that we're doing. There are things already in place, the Northern Pathways to Housing; the Small Community Homelessness Fund which gives food, et cetera; transitional supportive housing; public housing, everybody's aware of; Homelessness Assistance Fund. Then the Small Community Homelessness Fund, like I say, provides mostly meals, foods, and you can get, in the south it's up to $10,000 and in the northern regions it's up to $15,000.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Homelessness is a serious issue within the whole Northwest Territories, and it’s a priority of the 18th Legislative Assembly and a personal issue for myself, a professional issue, so I am committed to addressing homelessness during my tenure here. The $600,000 specifically, though, is to work with the resident or the homeless shelters within the Yellowknife area because of the need, the amount of homeless people in the community. Once that is finished, then we would be looking to work within the other communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The deferred maintenance actually that is on the H.H. Williams Hospital is over actually $38 million at this point. Currently, we're spending $632,000 annually on utilities and about $400,000 on regular maintenance. It's a very expensive building to operate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's really kind of hard at this point to kind of determine how that will affect it. There's a few things that are impacting the cost of fuel at this stage. I mean, diesel is a little bit lower because of the fluctuating global markets, but there's also an interruption in the supply because of the Fort McMurray fires. It's a little bit too soon to determine what the fuel price changes we'll need to come into to what will affect the cost. If there is a cost differential we know that none of those changes will take place until after the summer season is finished. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Public Works and Services has had a long-standing working relationship with NTCL and we recognize that they're going through some difficulties, but we have re-established a different contract with them to make sure that they're going to transport fuel into the communities during the summer of 2016. Based on the renewed contract and the decision within the legal case that they just recently had, we're not anticipating any interruption in fuel provision for this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Currently at this moment we are in talks, I am in talks, with the Housing Corporation. There is a cost to having crews, but I'm looking at more of a training program. When I recognize that the CMHC funding is going to disappear within the next 20 years or so, we need to have a better plan. I'm actually looking at more than just having crews go in and assist home owners, but actually looking at, is it possible for us to do some training of community members so that we can support self-governance and support the communities to take some ownership within their own communities. That's in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The coordinating thresholds that we use to determine allocations for programs that the Housing Corporation utilizes is done every two years, and they are separated into different zones between communities, and recognizing that there are differences within incomes and the cost of living within each zone, so there are certain things that we do. For example, I'll give an example of the PATH program to emphasize that. Within Yellowknife for the PATH program, because of the cost of living, people who are applying for housing, their own housing, can get up to a five per cent...