Robert C. McLeod

The New Deal that was done about five years ago is up for an evaluation. It was supposed to be evaluated after five years to see how we can improve how we work with communities. I have to say that with all the infrastructure money that we’ve been giving to the communities, they have the responsibility for the projects that they want in their communities. It’s a program that’s worked very well. We’ve heard back from many of the municipalities that have done a lot of good work with the money that they’ve been given. However, we are looking at re-evaluating or evaluating the program and seeing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through the School of Community Government we have about 11 core courses that a lot of the municipalities take us up on. For example, in 2011-2012 we had 11 training events that were attended by 135 participants. We work very closely with the communities to offer them programs and training that will allow them to do their job a lot better and with a lot of support from MACA.

We’re just starting the work now; however, I will keep the committee updated on the work as we go forward and hopefully have a finished product for them quite soon. I will keep committee updated on the work that we’re doing.

The communities are given an O and M budget. When they feel that there’s training that is necessary in their community, then they will, for the most part, use their O and M money to offer training in their communities. However, as I said, again, we do have a lot of courses that are offered through the School of Community Government that a lot of municipalities take us up on, and they meet other people from across the Northwest Territories that are doing similar work and they can share experiences and best practices.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Housing Corporation is committed to implementing a fair and sustainable public housing rent scale. It is one of the strategic actions outlined in Building for the Future: Northern Solutions for Northern Housing. It was also identified as a key component of the 17th Legislative Assembly’s priority to address housing needs.

Last month I released the public housing rent scale that will be implemented on July 1st. This rent scale addresses the many concerns we have heard from residents and Members of the Legislative Assembly over the past several years.

First...

We recognize that we have a lot of seniors that have been in these units for, as the Member has said, decades and almost since some of the units were built in the ‘70s. There’s always an opportunity there to discuss with the seniors the option of purchasing the unit. We look at the value as it pertains to the community that they’re in and we work out something with them.

But we also have to recognize that it’s quite a jump to go from paying, well, zero in some cases, now $70 to $80 depending on where you live, to having to maintain the unit on your own.

It costs us an average of $16,000 a year...

It is our intent to implement all the changes as per the shelter policy review on July 1st of this year and that includes seniors’ rent.

As I said, we feel like we’ve consulted adequately and if we were to delay it as per the wishes of some Members across the NWT, I don’t think too much would change. Therefore, I don’t see much need to delay the implementation and take this out again.

We’re always willing to look at that option; however, as I said before, we have to ensure that we don’t set the seniors up for failure. To go from zero right now to having to maintain the unit yourself, there’s quite an extensive cost to that. We want to make sure we work with the seniors to be comfortable that they are able to take over home ownership of the house. There’s always that option there and we’re more than willing to explore that with the seniors that have been living in their units for a long period of time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We feel that at the Housing Corporation we look after our seniors quite well. We have a number of programs that are designed especially for seniors; seniors Home Maintenance Repair Program. We feel that we look after their needs pretty good. We have a lot of seniors we recognize are living independently and they’re receiving no assistance from anyone and they still have the same bills to pay. So we try and do what we can as a corporation to look after the seniors’ needs.

There are a couple of new initiatives that we plan on rolling out within the shelter policy review...