Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, it is part of our plan to look at the overall delivery of housing across the Northwest Territories and see how we could improve our product, see how we can best support our LHOs with the declining funding. They are facing some challenges in their communities. Also with the rental arrears, that’s also another challenge that they are facing. It is something that looking at the overall picture and doing an overall review are issues that we have to look at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This would fit into the overall Shelter Policy we’re developing right now and this would look at all aspects of delivery of housing across the Northwest Territories. The plan is to develop a policy in the next fiscal year. We see this as a bit of a way forward document to deal with a lot of the issues regarding housing in the Northwest Territories.

I was just commenting to the official that we put in multi-unit purchase. We should have actually made it a little easier by just putting duplex because that’s exactly what it was. I apologize for that and we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.

The fact of the matter is we’re looking for a duplex to purchase. We haven’t identified one yet. This is money that’s earmarked for the possible purchase of a duplex.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just in regards to the Members’ first concern with the old northern territorials, and he is correct, we try and take, as we put new public housing units into the system, some of the older ones out, because a lot of them are beyond economic repair. Those are the ones that we would take out first. The Weber units, I think are almost the next in line for that. We still find that the Weber units, a lot of them have gone through a retrofit probably within the last 10 years, so there is still some life left in those.

The northern territorials are basically all out of the...

Anybody want to fill in for me, go ahead.

Mr. Speaker, as far as transferring the money back to the NWT Housing Corporation, Members will see that I think during this session as part of the supp process, as far as the reason it took so long, there were some details we had to work out with ECE. The actual block of money for the administration of the public housing rental subsidy is going back to the Housing Corporation and it will be done by the end of this Assembly.

Mr. Chair, we’re looking to dispose of some of the old units that we’ve written off, and as I mentioned to Member Abernethy, the last thing that we want to do is demolish them if there’s an opportunity for someone that might want one of these units. You know, at the end of the day, we’ve written them off because they’re beyond economical repair, so obviously it’s going to be an as-is, where-is, and Housing completely out of the picture. On the other hand, they’re going to need to be able to maintain the unit as far as looking after all the utilities and that goes.

We’re looking at different...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With some of the rates that are charged in the communities, obviously, a community that has more units has more units to spread out the cost of operating in that community and the smaller communities with less units, they have less units to spread out the costs. That’s why a lot of the costs are higher in those communities. However, at the NWT Housing Corporation we are considering looking at the idea of regional rents to spread it out throughout the regions. It is something that we are looking at. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the process of being evicted is a very long process. It’s not one where the LHO gets to work and decides they’re going to evict somebody today. They’re given many opportunities to try, especially with the arrears, they’re given many opportunities to try and deal with the arrears. Sometimes all the LHOs ask is that you come in and work out a repayment plan and then you get to keep the unit. A lot of tenants have gone to the boards, appealed to the boards and they’ve been given a kind of last chance, last chance. It’s an awfully long process before they get to the actual eviction...

No, these are lots that we’re acquiring for future development. In some of the communities that we go into, we have to identify and try and obtain lots ahead of time so we can develop them. So when we go back in the next year and go out for tender or have units to build and we actually have lots to put them on instead of in some of the communities we’re told we should come in a year early and develop some of the lots, because the ground could be swampy and you need time to settle that. That’s exactly what this is. It’s just developing the lots for future use.

I would be more willing to accept the Member’s invitation to visit his community and it gives me an opportunity to listen to their concerns and see what our product is on the ground there.

Going back to the Member’s wish for a four-plex, he was talking about the community taking the initiative and that is something that I have committed to the Member, that as a corporation we are always willing to listen to the communities and some of the initiatives that they come up with and we will do what we can to work with them, realizing that some of the units that they want to put on the ground, we are...