Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have one question. It might require followup questions for the Minister.
I'm just noting here on the operations expenditure summary for emergency shelters, so the main estimates for 20242025 and 20232024 are the same; however, the actuals for the 20232024 and the 20222023year are much higher. It is my assumption that the estimates and the actuals are different because of the cost to run the overnight shelters in Yellowknife; is that correct, Mr. Chair? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The cost differential in the revised estimates with the main estimates for 20242025 are related to the Inuvik shelter, and the Inuvik homeless shelter and warming shelter are internally resourced by Housing NWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Okay, thank you. I guess I'm mixing up health and social services and housing, I apologize. So I guess a followup question to that would be if we know the cost difference is basically an extra $2 million every year over year, why are we budgeting less? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The information I've received is that we have expanded our shelter network throughout the Northwest Territories, and we're working to gain more funding for the homeless shelters. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is there any timeline associated with that funding that they're seeking? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We don't have a timeline yet. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. More of a comment than a question, if that's the case maybe budget higher. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Next on the list I have got is the Member from Monfwi.
In June 2023, part of the 19th Legislative Assembly, we passed a motion here for longterm tenants for housing or houses to be transferred to longterm tenants who lived in it for over 20, 30 years. So I just want to know since that time to be homeowners, that's what we asked for. Since that time, I just wanted to ask the Minister to date, how many houses were transferred to longterm tenants in the NWT?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will turn to President Eleanor Young for that response.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. 39 have been completed, and I believe we have another 40 to 50 in process at the time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.
Thank you. Thank you, that's good to know. Another one, too, is that here, we're on page 384 maintenance. Okay, the budget went down from 20222023 to $13 million this fiscal year. So can the Minister tell us does this well, it's not lots, you know, but I just wanted to know if this supports all 33 communities?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The maintenance budget for community housing services supports all local housing authorities throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.
Thank you. So with that amount, so how much is allocated to Tlicho region of that amount?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just going to turn over to vicepresident Jim Martin here, and he'll get the exact numbers for the MLA. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the vicepresident.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A total of $2.3 million has been allocated to the Tlicho region. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.
Okay, well, that's good to know. $2.3 million to support four Tlicho communities. And especially in Behchoko, we have lots of houses that needs repair. I don't think this $2.3 million but, I mean, you know, divided by four communities, it's not enough. I don't think it's enough. So I just wanted to ask the Minister if there's any plans in the future to increase the funding for housing repair program for public units? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And that's the quandary we are in as Housing NWT, is our federal funding is declining and it's been declining since 1997 through the social housing agreement. Presently, we're at about almost $10 million from the 1997 social housing agreement. But we did receive funds through CMHC bilateral agreement in 2020 which supplemented our operating expenses for repairs and maintenance for public housing. But that agreement, again, ends in 2028. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Next on my list to speak I have is the Member from the Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's unfortunate that we have homeless people in the NWT, let alone our small communities. And the homeless population is growing. We tend to see that some of our residents from the smaller communities are making their way to the bigger centres, the larger centres, because they have these homeless shelters readily available. So as they make their way to the bigger centres, the regional centres don't have the capacity to accommodate all the people that are looking for shelter. Whether it be wintertime or summertime, they make their way I know they make their way to Inuvik because we have some homeless people within our in our own communities. Is there a plan in the future to provide homeless shelters within the smaller communities in the future? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, there is no plan to expand homeless shelters into the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, that's pretty unfortunate because like I stated there, the homeless shelter in Inuvik only has capacity for so many people, and you see residents from other communities trying to go there and they're told that they have no room, and the residents from the local town like, from the town of Inuvik are given first priority because they're the ones that live in the community.
Aklavik has a program that's administered by the Aklavik Indian band. I think they have up to four units that assist these homeless people with accommodations. They're given some kind of program where they can live in a home and live there until they can find suitable longterm arrangements. I've spoken to some of the residents that occupy these units, and I've also spoken to some of the administrators who administer this program, and it seems to be working. And it'll be good if the department can look at providing these services in the other communities.
I'm not going to ask you a question because I think you already answered my question about advocating or helping homeless people within the smaller communities. It's just unfortunate that looking at your emergency shelters, and it's gone down significantly from 20232024 to 20242025. So I don't see any room for advancing this, these programs to other smaller communities. It's only going to get worse because the people that are homeless, they get in trouble with the housing so it's local housing authorities by getting into arrears. And if they move out of their place and in the future, they want to apply, they're going to be told that they have arrears and those arrears have to be cleared off before they're even considered, then they're considered homeless. So it's just would be good if the department can, in the future, look at this homelessness more carefully because it's I lived in this in this environment for five months at one time. And you turn to alcohol and other myself, I just used alcohol, but I didn't consider myself an alcoholic because I was just merely surviving from one day to the next and it's not you can see that in every community. I see that in my own home community, and it's you feel helpless because you can't help your brothers, your sisters, your cousins, your community members. And these people just need a little help, because alcohol is the only detterrent they may have in the event that, you know, just surviving. I didn't consider myself an alcoholic because I overcame it. I mean, I'm still battling, but I've been able to overcome it because I was surviving from one day to the next. And if the department can help these people by, you know, keeping them in their own hometown, where their residents can maybe give them assistance too, by surviving from one day to the next. So it's more of a comment is to see if in the future that you can the department can look at providing these kinds of services that's provided in Aklavik and administered by a local Indigenous government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I know that you mentioned that it was just a comment, but I'm going to go to the Minister for an overall general comment to that. Thank you.
I know the difficulties in the past with Housing NWT in implementing policies that were colonialistic and sometimes punitive to many of our tenants across the Northwest Territories. But what we've done with Housing NWT over the last number of years is work on a strategic renewal initiative which included looking at reassessing those with arrears and providing those that have been evicted to be placed back on the waiting list for housing.
I know housing in the communities is few and far between. The 19th Assembly was the first Assembly in many, many Assemblies to actually put some capital dollars towards housing in the Northwest Territories. Much of that funding has been carried forward into this Assembly, so we still got a bit of work to do. But with those policies that MLA Nerysoo is referring to is things that have been put in place in the past and that we're working on to change for the future, for a better future for all of us and for Housing NWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Is there any further questions from Members? I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I am going back one page here, I apologize. But under community housing services, when we look at that line item for maintenance and I think my colleague from Monfwi was drawing attention to this one too.
My question is is this budget this line item just for, like, minor maintenance or repairs, or would it be for more serious renovations that are needed to, you know, to allow public housing unit tos be able to, you know, be liveable and stay open? I notice that the description of it says that it's for funding for LHOs to undertake demand and preventative maintenance activities to support the provision of good quality housing, but does this include more substantive renovations or repairs? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you for that question. With the maintenance budget, the maintenance budget is for LHOs and much of that is health and safety, preventative maintenance measures that are done on each unit throughout the Northwest Territories, each public housing unit, but also paying for staff to maintain those units. So that's all encompassing in that number of $13,854,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So if there was a need for a bigger renovation to keep a unit, you know, liveable, to keep it someone housed there, what line item or where would that come out of the budget?
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. For modernization and improvement of units, that is an MMI project, and that's under community housing services under expenditure category minor modernization and improvements. It comes through our capital plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
