Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Housing NWT would look for that internally. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I got a hand up from the Dehcho for one additional question.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was so excited I forgot to ask one more question, so I have this other question. I was so happy residents might be able to access a program to assist them with their living conditions. The criteria, I wanted to know what is the criteria for the emergency repair program? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. President Young is looking for the information at this moment. But when we look at applications for emergency repair or homeownership, we do have a number of things that clients would have to be eligible for, including our core need income threshold, so they have to be within that threshold to be applicable. They also have to have title to the home. And President Young can provide more information to this question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In addition to what the Minister said, this program is intended for urgent health and safety repairs is really what it's targeted to. It's a maximum of $15,000, and it's forgivable within the year. So clients can apply in successive years if they require that kind of emergency assistance. And, yeah, as the Minister said, income tested. And I think that's the key pieces of it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. Okay, I'm going to continue on now. Seeing no further questions, we will not be voting on this activity total.
Moving on to housing operations supports starting on page 390. Are there questions? Yes, I want to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So earlier, in an earlier section, the Minister clarified that the housing needs assessment and the housing infrastructure deficit assessment mentioned in Housing NWT's business plan will be moving more expeditiously. That's great news. My question is more centered on the business plan in general. And I'm bringing it up here because usually that's a joint production of the folks who are housed in housing operations and support.
My question is there are many actions in the Housing NWT business plan that do not have targets, and I'm just wondering if the Minister will be updating and sharing that plan now that there are some changed pieces in it, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we will be updating the business plan with targets. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's fantastic. And will the Minister be sharing that information publicly? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that material will be available publicly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's good for me, thank you.
Any further questions from Members? Seeing no further questions, we will not be voting on this activity.
Moving on to nonresidential buildings and operations starting on page 392. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.
Regarding the housing operations and support, I want to ask the Minister she is well aware of it too because she, you know, Tuk is in the same situation as we are in Tlicho region, especially in Behchoko. You know, with the housing crisis we have a waitlist of over 200 applicants on you know, in Behchoko alone. And I don't think the waitlist decreased but it increased, it went up because there's more family coming back, that are moving back to the communities, and it's having an effect, you know, on the families that, you know, taking in the family members that just moved back to the community. So I just wanted to ask the Minister if they have a plan in place to eliminate the waitlist, especially in my region, the Tlicho region. Is there a plan in place or, like I know that we need more houses. I hope that she will say we need to build more houses, you know, in Tlicho region to eliminate the waitlist. I know Yellowknife is in the same situation too but I'm just I'm advocating for my region. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And the waitlist, the housing waitlist, is something that is quite surprising considering the need across the Northwest Territories. And like the MLA mentioned, especially in regions like the Tlicho region, I look at numbers Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik, my community of Tuk, Yellowknife, the waitlist is long. Some of the work that we've done and that we're continuing from the 19th Assembly is addressing some of that waitlist. And then we're also looking at working with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, especially around income support clients, to determine the viability of the waitlist with the clients as there are stipulations within the policy that they apply for housing. So is that need in terms of waitlist 900 families on the waitlist, or is it something that's much smaller? But, again, we have to do the work through the housing needs assessment to determine that as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.
Thank you for the information, yeah. So that's all I have for this page.
Thank you. Are there any other questions for page 392? Seeing none, again we will not be voting on this activity total.
Moving on to the rent subsidy program starting at page 394. Are there any questions? Seeing no further questions, we will not be voting on this activity total.
Moving on to unilateral CMHC and other programs starting on page 396, with information items on page 398. Are there any questions? Seeing no further questions, we will not be voting on this activity total.
Committee, there are additional information items on page 399. Are there any questions?
Thank you, committee. Please return to the Housing Northwest Territories summary on page 379. Are there any further questions or comments from committee? I'm going to go the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a general comment, and maybe a question for clarity. I know initially when certainly the Indigenous government in my region, and likely others, received the federal housing initiative funding, there was a fair amount of work done in cooperation with NWT Housing. Units were built on NWT Housing land I believe, and then transferred for a nominal fee to allow the NWT Housing to add that to their inventory, list of inventory of public housing. So going forward and I know now, and I mean we've said it in this House that in my region certainly, you know, the Inuvialuit, I think has just purchased 22 lots in my region. I know the Gwich'in Tribal Council are purchasing lots as well and building their own homes and have set up, you know, some for market rental, some for other programs that they are involved in. So I guess I'd like to hear from the Minister. Did we miss the opportunity, I guess, to continue to work with the Indigenous governments in our region? I notice that work is now kind of they've went on their own with their funding and so yeah, so a couple of questions. Did we miss that opportunity? The previous government obviously missed an opportunity. And how is the relationship now and kind of what are our plans going forward to work together on some potential, whether it be seniors facilities or other facilities that are required in the region, that there may be some redundancies there that we can work together and certainly look at pooling some resources to get that infrastructure built. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I understand the MLA's question, and the work that we do in collaboration with Indigenous governments is critical, especially in advancing our mandate and business plan.
In terms of missing opportunities, I think at this point Indigenous governments, with their distinction base funding that they're getting from the federal government, see that as an opportunity for market houses in their communities, and they're advancing that. They're advancing their own plans. So that's fine with Housing NWT if they want to do that. The thing is that nobody is interested in public or social housing builds. That's going to be the Government of the Northwest Territories' responsibility. They're going to stick with market homes from what I understand. We will continue with public and social housing rentals, and that's the job that we have to do. But what I can do is ask President Young here to provide more information to the question from MLA Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And in addition to what the Minister said, there are still some partnership projects in the works. We do have, for example, in the Beaufort riding a joint plan to do an elders’ unit where some of the units will be administered through potentially HELP programming, and some will be public housing. That's a conversation that's still underway but we're active in it. We understand that one of the Indigenous governments is hiring two housing staff to work more closely with us because they've been understaffed the last couple years in the housing area, so we'll be able to have a team to work with. We have a new collaborative agreement with the other Indigenous government in your area that we're quite excited about working with. And we're taking all sorts of tacts. We're looking at any land that we may not need that we can make available to the Indigenous government. We'll work with Environment and Climate Change and Municipal and Community Affairs to work on the land needs in addition to what we may be able to support, you know, looking at supporting the development of housing plans. So although it may not be out in the public as much as it has been previously, there is still a lot of work ongoing. And whether it's through formal partnership agreements or just ongoing working group conversations, the activity is still ongoing and work with each other. I think the distinctionsbased funding has just given them other work to do. So, you know, some of these partnership projects are not as high on the radar and the public view as they maybe were before. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Madam President, for that information, and Minister Kuptana. I'm very happy to hear that the elders' unit is still in discussion and that we're still and the fact that you're looking at working with other departments to make that land available, very important, particularly in the smaller communities and the coast, I know that, in the Minister's riding. So very encouraging to hear that. I would encourage you to sing that from the rooftops, Minister. I think it's a good news story that we need to get out there to let them know that NWT Housing is not now an afterthought for Indigenous governments, that they are, indeed, still working with them, appreciating that, yes, they are doing some of their own initiatives, but I don't think everything they're doing is market rent so to make sure we're involved in that. So no, important to get that out there, and I appreciate the answer. And no questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Is there any further questions from Members? I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I want to dig in a little more into a line of questioning that the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake was getting into. So the first question I wanted to ask is it sounds like there's a fair number of builds planned for the coming year and yet infrastructure investment is listed as $13 million. So can the Minister or her staff kind of help me understand what money is actually going out the door? Maybe it is just $13 million, but I thought I heard $33 million is going out the door, we've got $60 million sitting there, so if I could just kind of get a better understanding of how the capital money is budgeted for in this budget and where the other money ends up landing, you know, on this page, I guess. Thanks.
Thank you. I'm want to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Like I mentioned, we do have a $93 million carry forward plan in capital, which includes new builds and MMI projects. We also have the $13 million outlined in the 20242025 Main Estimates. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from the Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could I get a bit more detail on kind of what's planned for the builds for this year? Is the Minister able to share any details with us on what exactly they're planning to do with the money?
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. If VicePresident Martin could help me with that answer to be more explicit. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the vicepresident.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So as noted previously, this is an updated number for this fiscal, so we have $107 million planned for investment this fiscal year. That's comprised of the following: 283 units for modernization and improvement repair projects. We have 65 that we're currently completing new public housing units. We have transitional housing projects that are underway, and that's going to be ten beds. We have biomass projects on the books right now that will support, in the plan, 99 units, public housing units, to be supported with biomass solutions. We had just recently completed in the plan a fourplex, market housing fourplex in Tulita. We're also in the plan with 75 public housing replacement projects. And that covers the majority of the plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. And please forgive me, I'm kind of writing down all these numbers, and it's all looking like quite a bit of this is actually quite a bit of activity. Can the Minister's staff just clarify, all of this that was just listed is occurring in 20242025?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's an impressive amount of work, I must say. I don't know, I'm kind of left sitting here thinking, like wow, we should be telling people about this. This is really exciting stuff. Maybe you are and maybe it's just been falling on deaf ears, I'm not sure. So help me understand, then, so we're spending $107 million. Where does this $60 million of uncommitted funding come into that number?
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
The number that the MLA is referring to is primarily made up of the number for the 50unit build in Yellowknife and public housing replacement for 20242025 to be tendered, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
