Kevin A. Menicoche

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I rise, too, to support the motion as well.

I think when I travel to my communities and talk to constituents, they always raise the issues of affordable housing. I think it was best said by a constituent I had run into at Northern Stores in Fort Simpson; they said, don’t call it low-rental housing if it’s not.

I think one of the ways we can address this is by actually looking at this proposal in this motion. When the Minister does his review of the rental scales, I think this a viable option to address those concerns and make those homes affordable. There are...

I was just trying to get a comparison to the intake for this year and how many people are actually eligible as opposed to the intake we took from last year or, say, the year before. Thank you.

I spoke earlier about the eligibility and it’s a concern as I travel around to my communities within my riding. A lot of people are saying that they’ve applied, they’ve got their rejection letter saying that they’re not eligible. So it raises the concern to me, Mr. Speaker, just how many people are eligible for NWT Housing programs. We’ve got a community core need income threshold level. So I’d like to ask the Minister just what range of a client are we looking for. How much can they make? Well, he can pick one of the communities in my riding. How much can they make and what’s the lower limit...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize two Fort Liard residents in the gallery here today. First is Ms. Melanie Louie. Welcome to the gallery. I also recognize that she’s with the Fort Liard District Education Authority. As well, best wishes this year to Bianca Kotchea in the Social Work Program, who’s in the gallery today. Mahsi cho.

Mr. Chair, just in terms of Fort Simpson, maybe the Minister can describe what the plan is for the one unit and two lot developments that are there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I’m pleased to hear that from the Minister and I’ll continue to raise the issue and press the issue. I look forward to the discussion in the business plans early in the new year.

Just going down the list, perhaps the Minister can describe the four-unit four-plex building purchase in Fort Liard. Exactly what that is?

The Minister must be talking about some O and M dollars, because I don’t see the amount of repair dollars reflected in the pages that are before me. Maybe the Minister can just clarify that? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to support this motion. I will be voting in favour of it. It’s something that constituents have been raising with me for the past seven years, Mr. Speaker, because they always say every time I make extra money, I have to give it over to the housing the following month when I don’t have that extra money. So this is the type of thing we’re talking about. It’s not only for the seasonal workers, Mr. Speaker, it’s also for the ones with a steady job that for whatever reason run into bonus income from overtime, or even VTAs if they’re lucky enough to...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In terms of the eligibility guidelines, should you have a community that doesn’t have enough applicants or else a lot of applicants are being rejected because of those guidelines, is the Minister willing to consider reassessing or relaxing his guidelines so that people in the upper limit, people that are over this net can be eligible for programming and some flexibility for the lower incomes as well? I believe that the people who can afford it should be in those units. Thank you.

In some of our communities in the Northwest Territories we did get some new houses, but the number of affordability problems continues to increase and this trend raises questions about eligibility for housing programs. So just once again, perhaps if I ask a different question a different way, Mr. Speaker, if I can. The current intake was completed October 14th. Does the Minister have enough statistics to compare the number of clients that applied this year as compared to the last three years? Thank you.