Robert C. McLeod

We have 12 on the waiting list. As for the length of time, we don’t have that information. We will contact the local housing authority and let them know there was a concern raised with the length of time with the waiting list and how long is the average time on the waiting list. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it is our hope to try and address the homelessness. It used to be that it was more of a regional issue, but I think we’re finding more and more that it’s continuing to branch out into a lot of the smaller communities and that’s one of the reasons that we’ve come up with this program to try and assist with that.

There are opportunities there to tie into the Anti-Poverty Strategy and all the different pieces of work we’ve got going out there. We have identified some money through our corporation to help deal with this and we’ll continue to do so. I think we have about four or five...

Mr. Chair, the president has committed to providing that information. We don’t have the numbers offhand, but we will provide the information to the Members. Thank you.

We’ve got 12 on the waiting list.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just very quickly, homelessness is an issue that’s facing all departments, I think, within this government, and it’s not just because they don’t have a home, there are many other reasons and we all need to do our part to deal with it. So as the Housing Corp, we do what we can to help deal with it and the other departments do what they can.

I like the Member’s point, though, and it’s something that we tried to do, is make the tenants aware of what it’s costing on that unit. I think it used to be right on their receipt, I believe, even on their power. A couple of years...

Thank you, Madam Chair. In response to Mr. Yakeleya’s concerns, the core need is something we use to determine where some of our allocations are. If you look at the numbers in core need, that includes all households in the community, not just the public housing portfolio in the community. So we have some challenges there. One of the questions they ask people is, do you think your housing is adequate, and nine times out of 10 people will say no. Every one of us in here can think of something that we need done in our house, so I’m not sure if it’s a true indicator. I suppose the only way to get...

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair, I would.

The Member is correct that we did introduce a Revised Mortgage Balance Program near the end of 2012. We gave homeowners with mortgages with the NWT Housing Corporation a chance to get a fresh start with predictable, fair monthly rent. Total arrears in the mortgage portfolio have been reduced from $16.5 million to $9.1 million over the last couple of years. A majority of the clients have actually opted into the new program and collection rates have been in the 70 to 80 percent range for these clients. We have about 115 clients that have not entered the new program for one reason or another and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The agreement was an extension to the Investment in Northern Housing Initiative that provided $1.8 million annually from the federal government, which is matched by the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. So that gives us about $3.6 million in investment over the next five years.

We’ve used these funds in the past to help deal with some of the programs to help low and modest income homeownership repairs, and it doesn’t address the problem of declining federal funding to operate social housing.

We’re continuing to have discussions with our counterpart in Ottawa on...

Mr. Chair, if someone came forward and said they wanted to buy the unit, then we would sell it to them. We also have a program we have been offering the last number of years now called the… It’s got a long title, but we give them $50,000, $25,000… It just went down as I was speaking. We give them $25,000 a door and it’s a program that we’ve offered for a while. It’s more designed for those who want to rent to professionals in the community. We’ve had some good uptake in a number of communities. I can provide a list to the Member of communities that have taken us up on this offer. We saw that...