Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 11, petitions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8, written questions, on the order papers of today.
---Unanimous consent granted.
Item 8, written questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.
Could the Minister provide the official written definition that the Housing Corporation uses to define and demonstrate barrier-free housing?
Would the Minister provide details as to the location of each of the 300 barrier-free units in the corporation’s public housing inventory by community and by size of each individual unit with regards to the number of bedrooms?
Would the Minister list what modifications, specifically to each unit, which make it fall within the definition being used by the Housing Corporation where they have defined it as being a barrier-free unit?
Mr. Speaker, I give notice that Monday, February 15, 2010, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that the government develop a program for community long-term care facilities for elders and that the funds for construction of such facilities be included in the 2011-2012 Capital Budget.
I’ll call Committee of the Whole to order. Today we have under consideration Bills 2, 4, 7, Tabled Document 62-16(4) and Minister’s Statement 47-16(4). What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to continue the review of Tabled Document 62-16(4), Main Estimates, and continue with the Housing Corporation and hopefully get MACA read in today.
Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Okay. With that, we’ll take a short break and then come back to deal with the Housing Corporation.
---SHORT RECESS
I’d like to call the House back to order. At this time, I’d like to ask the Minister of the Housing Corporation if he’d like to bring in witnesses. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would.
Robert C. McLeod.
Yes, Mr. Chair, I would like to bring in witnesses.
Does committee agree if the Minister brings in his witnesses?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses in.
For the record, Mr. Minister, can you introduce your witnesses?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me today Mr. Jeff Polakoff on my right, president of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, also I have Mr. Jeff Anderson. He is the vice-president of finance for the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. General comments in regards to the Housing Corporation. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have comments on the general observation of the Housing Corporation. I was reading the Minister’s comments to the House here. Probably somewhere down the line I will ask the Minister in terms of the federal funding for the housing programs in the Northwest Territories. I know there is a decrease every year. I believe the Minister at one time, I must have forgot in terms him stating the amount that the federal government is decreasing revenue towards our housing in the Northwest Territories. So far, I understand that there is $43 million for 2010-11 for housing programs and also that the stimulus federal government funding is going to be the final year in terms of the housing from the federal government as far as the initiative to deal with the economic downturn and to boost the economy in the Northwest Territories. I am going to ask him, in terms of going forward, if he can find any types of other funding that the federal government is going to possibly consider in terms of this initiative here. Of course, our share is 50 percent towards possibly a new type of federal government funding here.
Mr. Chairman, one of the issues I guess is where we have to wrestle with and look at in terms of how we improve our connection in terms of rents in our communities. There are some discussions in the past as to how that has an impact in terms of our housing in the Sahtu and the more faulty houses in the Northwest Territories in terms of our rent collection policy and how we are working with the communities.
Mr. Chairman, the one initiative that worked really well in the past and was to have a community liaison person in terms of the programs, in terms of the policies and the staff sometimes in our smaller communities are so swamped and so busy. It is really difficult for them. Members of the local housing authorities are working full time and don’t have the access to all the programs in detail. So that community liaison person would be a real boost in terms of improving and strengthening probably some of the programs in our communities. I am just going to ask for it in terms of is there something that can be done in terms of having one dedicated person just focus on housing programs that can go into small communities, go into people’s houses, talk to them, sit down and have coffee and not rush through the program. Sit down and talk with them. Go back the next day. Talk some more week after week. Get them to ask the questions and not have any sense of urgency and get it out the right way. That is a very valuable program that the corporation didn’t fund anymore. I will ask about that.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to state that programs such as health care, HELP care, those are good programs. As a matter of fact, just dealing with one of the programs, I sent a note over to the Minister’s office in terms of when the programs people come into our communities as part of the program is to get some training in the format of a workshop or a conference. I think there needs to be some communication with the staff when they come into communities. There was an incident that was no fault of anybody in my community, where there were two deaths within a week and we just couldn’t get the people there. They were quite concerned, because the applicant said they needed to be there to be part of the qualification requirement. I just hope that the staff in the future has some indication as to how is the community doing or can you come in or is it okay. Also with these programs also to look at having someone who is well versed in the language in terms of translating this stuff into the language here. Sometimes we do this with all good intentions. However, maybe it is not the intended target that we want to get. I just want to say this here to the staff and to the Minister.
The other one is the public housing stock. I have some concerns in the amount of vacancies or boarded up homes in the community. We are just trying to have a good communication as to say why these houses are all boarded up. We are looking for, especially in my region where the Minister presented the 2009 NWT Community Housing Survey in my region. My region isn’t doing too well. I am scared about that. I’m not too sure which angle to go at in terms of how we look at the results. The numbers are there. How do we tackle that issue here?
With the housing stock, the land available and the replacement of public housing units, I wanted to look at some of that issue there. I know housing and the land available for housing is pretty critical. That needs to be thought out more in terms of how you go about making land available. Some people still have the idea that sometimes we don’t have land for something. Housing takes it all up. That is part of their requirement. They want some security or land tenure in order to build a house. Sometimes we come to an impasse. Sometimes it is hard to work out some of the issues here. I think that is something that is good in terms of putting the needs of the community and the housing together to get more out of it there.
The energy assessment and retrofits of public housing is something that we looked at in my community in terms of the older units. Today I still go into some of the communities and I can’t believe that some of these units are still like that. The doors are still two or three inches, the windows are fogging up, floors are cold. There are lots. The Minister has a real big load in terms of working with… This is not new. He knows well that this is not new. It is just a continuous issue. How do we work on this? There is, of course, not enough money to do what we want to do. You can see the numbers here. You can see the numbers of houses that the survey speaks to. That is something that I am still going to be pressing the Minister on.
I am really happy that the transfer is going back to the Housing Corporation. A little bit of reluctant caution here not to bring out the balloons and the fanfare, because I really haven’t seen it yet. I haven’t seen it in terms of whether it is a good thing. I know what people in my communities are going to say. It is a good thing. Local housing authorities, board members actually made a motion to meet a percent to this Legislative Assembly. I am glad this Minister is in and the other Minister I worked it out so that it goes back to the Housing Corporation. Chalk one up for the Housing Corporation and this government in terms of having this back to the Housing Corporation. It is what you do with it is going to be the key. Probably the Minister is going to work at that area.
Mr. Chairman, the other thing I wanted to say is that I hope that we work very hard on this recent survey here. Again, I found it very disturbing. I had a lot of time to read it -- I was flying back from Edmonton -- it is a good thing. We need to tackle square one.
So I’m going to look forward to the Minister’s strategy as to how do we deal with this to bring the numbers down. What’s the department’s strategy? How do we go and how do we collaborate with ourselves and the communities to bring these numbers down, especially in Colville Lake and other communities? So that’s all I have, Mr. Chair, in terms of my comments to the department.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. We don’t have anybody else on the list, so I’ll allow the Minister to respond to the Member’s general comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member raises a few points that are of concern to us. Federal funding is obviously the big one. That’s something that this year alone I think we’re in the neighbourhood of $670,000 that we’ve lost. Since the start of this, I think it’s up to $5.8 million and that goes into the Member’s next point of improving the rent collection. I think that would go a long way into alleviating some of the money that we could be losing from CMHC. It’s a message that we’re starting to get out there and I think folks out there are starting to realize that it’s to their benefit, too, if they’re kept current and up to date, entering into repayment plans and that would qualify them for a lot of programs.
The community liaison was a good program that was in place. Unfortunately when there was a budget reduction exercise a couple of years ago, they were the ones that got cut, but we’re willing to take the advice of committee and work with the communities to see if there’s an appetite to bring these positions back, especially when it comes to the homeownership initiative and just giving out advice in that they were well versed, they knew the communities very well. We have the tenant relations officers that deal with the public housing issues.
The translation, we try and have folks that speak the local language to some of our folks when they’re in visiting or having people coming in to see them, just to make sure that interpretation is right and the clients understand the programs and what we’re trying to do for them.
The public housing stock, we’re making some improvements to the public housing stock. The Member spoke about the energy efficiency and that’s a huge goal of ours through the major M and I program and the public housing stock and the CARE program. The money has gone up considerably for that and we’re having more uptake. Even if it’s a simple thing like replacing windows and doors goes a long way into that, and we’ve seen that the old windows that came with a lot of the old packages, I think you’ve seen them, they’re very draughty.
The vacant units continue to be a concern. We have about 192 vacant units. There are about 150 of them that are being repaired. So we’re hoping to get those back into the inventory and there’s 42 that are available.
I appreciate the Member’s comments and all the other Members’ comments on the Public Housing Rental Subsidy. We’re looking for a smooth transition. We were able to do this work with the folks that we had on the ground and we’re looking at having the LHOs take over the responsibility of the assessments in June. So we’ll have that done quite soon and we want to make sure that we do it right and that there’s a very smooth transition. We have to work with our colleagues over at ECE, but as far as our capacity to take this back on, I think it’s well known and we’ve heard from a lot of communities that they’re ready.
The community needs survey, as I stated yesterday, would go a long way into determining our infrastructure acquisition plan for not this fiscal year because this is the budget we’re dealing with now, but when we come forward to committee with next year’s infrastructure, it should reflect the needs of the communities according to this survey. So we’re looking forward to that.
I think I’ve touched on the Member’s points and I’m sure the Member will have questions as we go through detail. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
General comments? Detail. Okay, we can turn to page 5-41, financial summary. At this time I’d like to suggest we defer that page. Agreed?
Agreed.
Okay if we can move to page 5-43, corporate summary, operations expenditure summary. Again this is an information item.
Agreed.
Agreed. Okay, in regard to moving on to page 5-44, active positions by regions, again, information item. Are there any questions? Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the increase of nine positions, could I get a little more detail on that?
Minister of Housing.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of the positions are for implementing the Canada Economic Action Plan stimulus money. As we know, there’s more and more projects getting out the door and these are technical folks that we have on the ground to assist with that. Their positions will be lapsing once we’re through with the money, but at this point there was so much money being poured into the communities and into the regions we felt that we needed some extra help just to deal with this money.
The others are mortgage collection specialists. We’ve heard the discussion on arrears and we’re looking for some folks to assist us with our mortgage collections and I think I’ve covered them all. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With the federal funding, the one the Minister made a reference to, is this going to be one year or is this ongoing? Is it going to increase sometime in terms of the ongoing positions for the corporation?
The money that we got from the federal government for the Canada Economic Action Plan, this coming fiscal year, ‘10-11, is the last year of that money. Thank you.
Thank you, and now the mortgage collection specialists. Is this going to be part of their long-term O and M or is this going to be a program where they’ll train or work with the local housing authorities to take more of a role into it and the mortgage collection specialists would ease their way out? So is this going to be a part of the ongoing O and M?
The Member is correct; these two, the mortgage collection specialists will be part of our operations from this point on.
So it’s going to be part of the operations in terms of these mortgage collection specialists. Now these mortgage collection specialists, are they going to be in the region or is that going to be coming out of the headquarters to take care of the regions and the communities?
These positions will be in the Executive headquarters and they will be supporting the work of the regions. Thank you.
Okay, we’re on page 5-44, again, information item, active positions.
Agreed.
Agreed. Moving on to executive, page 5-47, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I noticed that the executive is responsible for coordinating housing issues across government departments and agencies. Strategic planning is a key element of the corporation, particularly long-term strategic planning and direction and there’s research and other functions with the executive. I see an important opportunity for the Housing Corporation to address both some of our housing needs and some of our other broader government goals, including local economic development. We’ve heard how the massive amounts of work they are doing and the most recent stimulus funding and so on is providing jobs. These are things that are placed on the ground as opposed to really engaging a community-level partnership and I’m wondering what the planning is strategically for developing partnering programs with community governments and CMHC, which is a corporation that seems very open and with deep pockets when it comes to innovative approaches and trying to do things a little bit differently.
The City of Yellowknife has shown a similar initiative to develop and construct locally appropriate housing where feasible, using local materials, local skills, those skills that are there perhaps enhanced with some capacity building, and strengthening of maintenance skills already there for locally appropriate housing, but again enhanced through some capacity building.
I believe my colleague Mr. Krutko has mentioned several times the niche for modest sized homes out on the land that could be used by people with that interest, as well as, of course, log homes in communities using local materials. I realize the costs are different, but partnerships and skill building are the important aspects there, and, of course, the potential for in a more fertile way spreading the energy efficiency knowledge that is getting well embedded in the Housing Corporation.
That’s sort of a long description but I’m convinced that we need fully integrated approaches, things that go much more in-depth now than we have in the past. These are embedded challenges in this approach, I’m the first to admit. But on the other hand, the benefits are spread across many of our goals and priorities. I’m just wondering if there’s any reflection of that sort of philosophy or if that could be developed so that it is reflected in the budget planning that the executive does in the Housing Corporation.
Minister of Housing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the Member’s point, he talks about the local economic development and the Housing Corporation in partnership with the LHOs are some of the biggest employers in the community whether it’s guys doing maintenance or during the summer you can have up to 16 or 17 people if you’re doing a lot of the M and I work yourself. So we contribute quite a bit in that regard. The local materials, I think I made reference to yesterday, were possible. We’d love to use local materials for construction, however they do have to meet a standard and if those materials were to meet the building standard, then we’d be glad to use them.
Housing is always interested in partnerships. We have partnership with... And the Member and I discussed this yesterday in the Chamber on the good work that Yellowknife was doing, and I said then that we were at the table with them and continue to work with them. It is our intent to be part of the long-term plan on this Affordable Housing Initiative and the affordable housing organization when it rolls out.
So we want to be a part of that. We need to have discussion with committee on some of what they’d like to see in some of our longer term goals as far as planning, because we’re getting to a point now that unless we work out arrangements with the deep-pocketed CMHC, we’re going to have to look at creative and innovative ways to continue to deliver with some declining funding. So we’re always looking to develop partnerships with folks out there that have the same interests that we do of providing affordable housing to residents of the Northwest Territories. It’s an ongoing process and I’m looking forward to some committee time to seek their input and incorporate that into a long-term vision.
I am cognizant of the references in the discussion we had yesterday and so on. I appreciate the Minister’s comments. Again I’m trying to emphasize, too, the coordination role and integration with other government departments and agencies and wouldn’t expect that the Housing Corporation would do all this. There are other departments that could assist with developing the local materials so that they did meet standards. The Housing Corporation could probably work to come up with some forms of appropriate housing that perhaps didn’t have the same types of standards and meet the situation halfway. There are others involved in capacity building that could be brought into the equation and I’m sure are. But that’s the sort of thing that I was looking for. Sort of the strategic planning sorts of things. I think we need to, as the Minister says, our resources are declining sooner or later, and more and more, almost regardless of what happens, we’re going to be depending on local capacity for these things. I’m trying to seek ways, as I’m sure the Minister is, to help ensure that those skills are on the ground in all our communities so that when we do hit rock bottom or should we, the potential is there to pick up the slack.
I again appreciate the comments of the Minister and I would just ask him to make sure that is emphasized in the strategic planning for the Housing Corporation. Just a comment.
Mr. McLeod, did you want to respond to the comment?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will take committee’s advice and input when we’re developing the strategy. We need to make sure that when the money is declining, we’re able to meet the challenge. We do continue to support local development. I know from experience that there were times where the Housing Corporation would make a commitment to buy materials from local producers and distribute them to the LHOs, and unfortunately these products didn’t quite measure up and there were issues with that. But we’re always looking for ways that we can continue to support and we’ll make it part of our strategy and work with, like I said, committee, because they know best what works in the community and what people are saying. I commit to the Member that we will continue to do that.
