Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation in regard to the recent report on the housing survey. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of his research that’s starting with the report with discussions with the staff, I want to ask the Minister, has the Corporation found out any reasons why the increase in terms of the survey in terms of the adequacy, the suitability or the affordability in terms of these numbers. It’s very disturbing in terms of the numbers that are increasing. They should actually be decreasing. Has the Minister had any type of an indication as to why the increase?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is right; there are some factors that are taken into account when determining the needs survey. You can put houses on the ground but there is still some existing stock that needs to be taken care of: the suitability factor, there’s the adequacy factor and affordability. These are all taken into consideration. With the investments, as I stated earlier, that are being made now, we’re quite confident that all these numbers will go down when we do the next survey. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, with the existing stock on the ground and because of the existing stock on the ground, it means that we have some real major problems in terms of major repairs. In the report it says out of 33 communities, 25 communities need major repairs. The Housing Minister has indicated that now with the investment now coming into the Housing Corporation, hopefully in five years, that we’ll see a decrease in these numbers here. However, Mr. Speaker, in the last three or four years we did receive some major dollars in terms of federal government and now we’re going to be running out of the money. So I want to ask the Minister how we are going to see a decrease in these numbers with the funding cutbacks from the federal government.
Mr. Speaker, because the investments made by the federal government and matched by the GNWT over the last couple of years we’re expecting that these numbers should go down. The Member is correct; we have approximately $19 million going towards major M and I’s this year. Then there’s the home repair program where a lot of money will be going to. We’re not adding so much new public housing into the stock. A lot of what we’re doing now is replacement of older public housing units. So all these are taken into consideration, but we’re quite confident that when the last of this major investment lapses in two years then we will see a decline in the numbers in the needs survey. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in one of my communities there are lots of vacant homes. Some people want to see if they can get into these vacant homes. However, because they were built in the ‘70s or late ‘70s, it makes it quite hard for them to get them to upgrade the units in there. Is there something that we can do in terms of having people come into these old units through the government programs they have now to see if they could make it suitable, make it adequate for them and affordable for them to be a proud homeowner?
Mr. Speaker, we have identified vacant units or older units in some of the communities that we would like to remove from our stock. However, we have to be careful that we don’t just hand them over, because then there will be a requirement or they will come back asking for money to repair these units. So we have to make sure that it is something that is feasible for the corporation and something that the potential homeowners realize that they can take on. We are making quite an investment in the homeownership part of the delivery. So there is $14 million, I think, this year alone into the Homeownership Program. Next year we have additional money going towards homeownership. We are taking steps to address this. We have been having discussions. There have been a couple of communities that are quite interested in taking over some of our older units and then they would do the work and then they would then use them as housing for staff or professionals that are coming in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could I ask the Minister if he could also look at the communities in the Sahtu? Because the Sahtu has the highest adequacy percentage in the Northwest Territories with 41 percent. Could he look at it in terms of bringing down this number in terms of the adequacy means no bathroom, running water, no hot water, plumbing and electrical issues? Could he look at that in terms of bringing those numbers down in terms of a commitment that he made earlier to the MLA for Nahendeh?
Mr. Speaker, I will make a commitment to all 11 Members that we will be doing what we can to bring the housing needs down. There is an adequacy issue, obviously. A lot of this is homeowners that have received home packages from the Housing Corporation that are looking to make some repairs to them. We are doing what we can to assist them, Mr. Speaker. I have made a commitment that once we are through this two-year cycle of the major investment that we have had, I am very confident that we will see a decline in the needs numbers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
