Thank you. I have to recognize that there will be at least five other Aboriginal government partners. So that will be something that we would work out and I’m sure that we would want to be as transparent as possible. Thank you.
Thanks for the Premier’s reply there. I wonder if the Premier would take on the lead in suggesting that meetings be public and provide that transparency. Thank you.
Thank you. I’d be pleased to do so.
That’s all I have, Mr. Chair. Mahsi.
Thank you. Committee, page 4-25, activity summary, intergovernmental relations, operations expenditure summary, $1.707 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 4-26, activity summary, intergovernmental relations, grants and contributions, $350,000. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Are these meetings meant to continue, or will this Intergovernmental Council be fulfilling the roles of these intergovernmental meetings here? I guess, as well, how is the funding going to work for the Intergovernmental Council in relation to this? Perhaps they’re the same thing. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are two separate things. This is the deal with the Aboriginal governments themselves. The Intergovernmental Council is primarily a land administration body with which the federal government is providing up to $3 million for funding it. Thank you.
Thanks.
Committee, page 4-26, activity summary, intergovernmental relations, grants and contributions, $350,000.
Agreed.
Agreed. Page 4-27, information item, intergovernmental relations, active positions. Any questions? Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you. Page 4-28, information item, lease commitments - infrastructure, $27,000. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a brief question for the Minister. I know earlier we discussed having an office similar to this put in place in Ottawa with a position also to help fill the relationship with the federal government and lobby on our behalf. So I’d like to ask the Minister if those plans are still moving forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Premier McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, it’s still our intention to do so. We presently have one person in the Ottawa office that we contract, a consultant to help us with intergovernmental relations and we’ve not come to the conclusion yet that we would staff it with a political person at this time, but we will continue to operate an office in Ottawa. Thank you.
Committee, page 4-28, information item, lease commitments - infrastructure. Questions?
Agreed.
Agreed. Page 4-29, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Any questions.
Agreed.
Page 4-30, information item, work performed on behalf of others.
Agreed.
Return to page 4-7. Department summary, operations expenditure summary, $9.195 million.
Agreed.
Is committee agreed the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations is complete?
Agreed.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Thank you, witnesses. Please allow the witnesses to leave the Chamber.
Alright, committee, we have agreed to begin reviewing the NWT Housing Corporation. I will turn to the Minister of Housing for any opening comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 2014-15 Main Estimates for the NWT Housing Corporation. The main estimates propose a budget of $141.730 million, an increase of 25.7 percent from the 2013-14 Main Estimates. The budget includes a contribution of $83.482 million from the GNWT for 2014-15.
As Members are aware, one of the five priorities identified by the 17th Legislative Assembly is to address housing needs. There are significant differences in housing between our market and non-market communities and there are needs along the entire housing continuum, from homelessness to homeownership. The actions of the NWT Housing Corporation are also being guided by Building for the Future, our strategic plan.
The activities reflected in the 2014-15 Main Estimates for the NWT Housing Corporation build on the work we have done over the first two years of the 17th Assembly, and some of the highlights include:
We have made substantial investments to improve the quality of the public housing stock and will invest a further $20.5 million in 2014-15 to replace 39 older public housing units and complete major retrofits to 216 units.
We are expanding the availability of market rentals to support devolution, decentralization and service delivery in smaller NWT communities. We plan to build 34 new units and spend $7.5 million in 2014-15 as part of the plan to add 100 market rentals over the next three years. We have also increased our budget for partnership arrangements to support developers that want to invest to add to the rental stock in smaller communities.
In 2014-15 we will spend $9 million to build new seniors independent living complexes in Fort Good Hope and Fort Liard and to replace the Joe Greenland Centre in Aklavik.
We will build six new public housing units in Jean Marie River, Colville Lake and Wekweeti, which are communities currently underserved by the Public Housing Program.
We are making significant changes to improve service delivery to community residents and strengthen our relationship with the local housing organizations. These changes will make it easier for residents to access our programs. They will also allow us to better balance overall roles and responsibilities and better support our community delivery agents.
We also have initial plans to create new local housing organizations in Fort Liard, Whati and Gameti, which will improve service delivery in these communities and create new community employment.
We are improving our homelessness supports and doing our part to support the Anti-Poverty Strategic Framework. This includes investing $680,000 for four new transitional housing units to help address the “hard to house” in smaller NWT communities. We are also establishing a Shelter Capital Fund, which will be an application-based program to support shelters in the NWT that are operated by NGOs with repairs for their facilities and equipment.
We are continuing to change and improve our programs to ensure consistency across the housing continuum and to support the objective of strengthening self-reliance and to support residents in meeting their own shelter needs.
We will continue to make investments in alternative energy technologies and to take advantage of retrofits to improve energy efficiency. We are also improving our systems to better track and understand the impact of the energy investments on our operating costs.
Public Housing continues to be the largest program offered by the NWT Housing Corporation, with approximately 2,400 units. The change in the rent scale implemented on July 1, 2012, made rent simpler, more predictable and fairer, and addressed the disincentive to work. We have improved management of the program with the introduction of new information systems for tenant relations and maintenance activities. The investments planned for 2014-15 build on the more than $140 million spent on the public housing stock over the past seven years.
The NWT Housing Corporation has also taken significant steps to support homeownership in the Northwest Territories. The NWT Housing Corporation will spend approximately $7.6 million in 2014-15 supporting homeownership and assisting homeowners in completing repairs to their houses. We have made changes to our Emergency Repair Program, our preventative maintenance program and will be making revisions to our major repair program in 2014-15.
Changes have been made to PATH, our subsidy to support the home purchases, which makes this program more effective in supporting homeownership in non-market communities and expands the potential pool of clients. Changes are being introduced to HELP in 2014-15 to make it more consistent with our approach to the public housing rent scale.
Late in 2012-13 steps were taken to provide homeownership clients that have a mortgage with the NWT Housing Corporation revised mortgage balances and affordable repayment options. I am pleased to report that most clients have taken advantage of this program, with mortgage collection rates of about 80 percent for the clients that have entered into these new agreements. Unfortunately, there are a number of clients that have not responded to the new program and mortgage collection continues to be quite low for those clients. Legal action is likely the next step in many of these cases.
The Transitional Rent Supplement Program, which provides support to reduce the affordability problems and core need among residents in market rentals, was introduced in late 2012. In total, about 100 households have received support through this program, although about 20 households have since left the program as their housing situation has changed. As a new program, the NWT Housing Corporation continues to promote awareness about the Transitional Rent Supplement Program as it fills a gap in our housing supports that has historically been a large contributor to our overall core housing need.
Finally, the NWT Housing Corporation continues to administer the Homelessness Assistance Fund and the Small Community Homelessness Fund. The $325,000 for these two funds provides direct assistance to residents who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and funds projects in smaller NWT communities that address homelessness issues. In 2014-15 the Hard to House Initiative will see four communities supported in operating small transitional housing projects and the Shelter Capital Fund being added. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. I’ll ask the Minister if he has any witnesses to bring into the House.
I do, Mr. Chair.
Does committee agree?
Agreed.
I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Mr. Minister, would you please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right I have Mr. David Stewart, president of the NWT Housing Corporation. To my left I have Mr. Jeff Anderson, vice-president of finance and infrastructure, NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Minister. I will now open the floor to general comments for the NWT Housing Corporation. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to welcome the Minister and the NWT Housing Corporation staff here today. First and foremost, I want to say that I think, for the most part, Members were quite pleased with the direction NWTHC is taking. The review we did a number of months ago, we did not unveil a lot of earth-shattering issues, but there were certain things that I think we needed to look at and I wanted to basically echo some of those areas. Some of them were raised in today’s opening comments by the Minister and others were not, so I will be dipping back and forth here just so you can capture some of the areas where I’d like to maybe get the Minister to give us a brief update.
First, and in no particular order, the Public Housing Purchase Program was introduced in 2013-2014 for rental clients with very good track records. I don’t think it’s captured in the opening comments. It would be nice to get a bit of an update as to where we are with that program.
One of the areas of concern that Members here have had for a number of years was the operating deficits that a number of the LHOs had from year to year. We know there was some great work done on rebalancing these deficits, but again because we haven’t dealt with this department for a number of months, if we could just have an update as to what the situation is currently.
Again, we know that the rent collection rates have improved dramatically and I think that’s shown in the rates from year to year, but maybe if we can get some latest figures. Today we received some information about mortgage collection rates, but it would also be nice to get some rent collect rates updates as well.
Within the opening comments we also heard about the Transitional Rent Supplement Program, about 100 households that have received support. We know this is a very worthwhile program that could probably be, or should be, 100 percent used every year. We’re wondering what is the department doing, what is the Housing Corp doing to make sure that the message is loud and clear out there that there are monies available to residents. I think we’re able to do 150, I believe, if you can clarify that number. Really, we’re only getting two-thirds update on a very worthwhile program.
Again, we did talk a little bit or we heard a little bit about the mortgage arrears and that they were going to seek, potentially, legal action. Can I maybe get some clarification if we have taken any legal action to date during the life of the 17th Assembly, and if not, if there are grave arrears pending, why haven’t we taken this legal action? It sounds like within the body of today’s opening comments that these would be the next steps. I believe these next steps have been there for some time, so I think getting an update as to where we are potentially in a legal action might shed some light on those people who haven’t been living up to their obligation.
We know there was a substantial increase in a replacement of the electric hot water heaters in a number of our housing units in the last fiscal year, and we know that we did not capture 100 percent of this conversion of electric hot water heaters in all thermal communities. I just want to get an update here as to where we are with that priority. Will we see that completely finished within the fiscal 2014-2015 cycle here?
Utility costs for all residents of the Northwest Territories are obviously a concern. We know the Housing Corporation is not immune to increased costs for utilities and we know that there’s a slight bump in the budget here for that. Maybe if the Housing Corporation can elaborate. What are they doing to track these utility costs? Is there any way we’re able to modernize and maybe get some real time reporting that might be able to be shared with committee and the people of the Northwest Territories?
There are a lot of asks in these opening comments and I’m sorry for doing that, but I believe it captures, in essence, some of the areas committee was looking at. Because we didn’t look at this for a number of months, a state of the union update as to how it is today would be very beneficial. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As part of the Member’s first question on public housing purchase, that is going to be part of the PATH program now providing assistance to homeownership, so they’ll be able to access that program to purchase a public housing unit. We’re actually thinking of approaching some of the public housing clients that have been there and been good tenants and keep the rent up to date for a long time. We’re actually considering approaching them to see if they would be interested. So, the work is ongoing in that.
The operating deficits, we do have a number of communities that are running a deficit right now, but we’re working closely with the communities and we think that with the new program that we’re able to monitor the activities of the LHOs. If there are any red flags, we should be able to pick those up right away.
When we appear before committee next year, I think this is being implemented on April 1st, if I’m not mistaken, we’re doing all the preliminary work right now, so we’ll able to monitor and have some real time data and be kept up to date on those.
The rent collections, I have to say the numbers have improved considerably. There are a number of LHOs that are over 100 percent, which means that they’re collecting the rent that was assessed plus a lot of people are putting money on their arrears. I think our highest one in the latest fact sheet I have is at 173 percent, so that’s a good indication. Unfortunately, we still have some communities that are quite low, and we’re working on those communities. We keep Members up to date on any potential evictions that might be happening in their riding and you may be hearing from certain individuals who are being evicted because of not paying their rent.
The rent supplement access, the Member is correct; we’ve got 150 units that we’re funded for. I think we had 100 and then we had 20 of them, I think, that have moved on, which I guess in a way is a good thing. We’ve had some public meetings and we’re trying to communicate the fact that we have this option that’s available to them, and word of mouth is sometimes the best advertising. We’ve had people approaching us saying we know about the program. I believe there were a couple ads in the paper. But we are communicating it to the public, we’re working on that and we are anticipating that we should be able to pick up more clients in this particular program.
The legal action on the mortgages, I think we’ve got about 30 clients that they’re over at the lawyer’s office right now. We want to move on these clients, because they have been given a fantastic opportunity, as I said in my opening comments, to come in and redo their mortgage balance. For one reason or another, they decided not to take us up on that and continued with their own mortgage, which with many of them we’re still in arrears and they just haven’t paid since then, so they really have left us with no choice but to proceed with legal action because it’s unfair to a lot of those people that are paying on time and have been paying on time for a number of years.
Hot water tanks, we have 90, I believe, that are left out of 2,400 units. I think the replacement of these electric hot water tanks is still ongoing through the M and I, Modernization and Improvement Program. As a unit is getting some work done, I think in my opening comments I mentioned we had 216 we are hoping to do, so any of the units that we’re doing the major retrofits on, we will be replacing the hot water tanks on there. Again, as we come before committee next year, those numbers should improve significantly. We have regular briefings with committee, so as we replace out the hot water tanks, we’ll be giving committee an update on the number we have left.
Utility costs, the tracking is an area that we have had some concerns with again. With the new program that we have in place, we will be able to capture their utility costs very quickly. I believe we are working with the utility providers and they’re going to do an electronic transfer of the usage from all our clients. Again, with the major retrofits we have, we’d like to see that number come down. Obviously there are some things we can’t control, but there are some things that we can and that’s what we’re working on. But with the new program we have in place, I think we’ll be able to track all of the usages in the communities a lot closer. Again, that will be a valuable tool for us. If we see a unit in a particular community that has extremely high utility costs consistently, then we know that’s one of the units that we may have to consider doing a major retrofit on.
I believe I’ve touched on all the points the Member has raised. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. There are lots of great initiatives in the NWT Housing Corporation as we move forward. I just want to make note that there are a lot of individual cases that continue to come across my desk, but I think as we replace public units and more homes and increase the changes to the PATH program… I’m not sure what changes have been made to the PATH program. Maybe the Minister can elaborate. I’m not sure if they have examined it, but with regard to PATH, many people in my constituency are always over the household CNIT limit, the Core Need Income Threshold limit. I don’t know if they’ve reviewed that. I have always been of the position that people who can afford those homes are the ones we should be helping. I don’t know if they’ve had a chance to review that, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister McLeod.
The Member is correct; we have a lot of individual cases that we do deal with. The numbers have come down substantially in the last little while which, again, is a good indication that the work that a lot of people want done on their units is being carried out.
As far as the changes to PATH, the Member is absolutely correct. We’ve had issues in the past where somebody would be a dollar over the Core Need Income Threshold and they were automatically declined. We’ve tried to tailor our programs that if they are a little bit over, now it’s not going to be that they are automatically declined. We take those into consideration. I think the zones, if they are over, then obviously their subsidy would come down a bit instead of just being flat out declined for any kind of subsidy. So for those who are slightly over, they will still continue, if they are eligible on all other fronts – there’s more to it than CNIT – then they will be receiving some assistance; however, the subsidy would be lower than if they were below the Core Need Income Threshold. That’s one of the major changes because we’ve heard from so many places where I’m $10 over and I’m declined. So we have tried to take steps to address that to get more people to access some of our programs, because you’re right, Mr. Menicoche, a lot of these people are the ones who have proven that they would be able to maintain a home. We need to do what we can to assist them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In Fort Liard alone, I think they’re building a new seniors complex. The community is looking forward to that. It will help alleviate some of the needs of the elders in the communities or in the older units and are of that age where they can be accommodated somewhere else.
Just speaking of elders in the communities, I know that the Housing Corporation used to have senior-specific programming, but a lot of that is done away with. Perhaps the Minister can comment on that. I get a lot of requests by elders as I travel to communities. I think one of the programs was just cleaning their chimneys, cleaning their stoves and preparing them for the oncoming winter. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
There were a lot of programs that were specifically designed for seniors, but we’ve rolled all those into the programs that we offer now. If you look at the Preventive Maintenance Program that the Member was referring to, a good portion of those clients are seniors and our program officers working with the government service officers in the communities, we try to get to as many seniors as possible. If they applied the year before and we know that they are still an eligible client, then we’ll see what we can do to try to assist them in getting preventative maintenance done.
As well, I could point out that we’re looking at the role and responsibilities of our local housing organizations. Our plan is to use them as more of taking applications and working with the potential clients in the community, because in the past, clients in the communities had to wait until a program officer from the district office came in and they did the application process. They left and then they had to do all the other work. We’re thinking about using our local housing organizations to do a lot of this work and then people in the community would know they had that one central point of contact. If they have to bring financial information, they know it’s just going to the one person.
With a lot of our programming now, I believe instead of having set times to get an application in, we almost have a continuous application process, so they can almost put an application in at any time which is a great convenience to clients in the communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
When trying to address seniors’ needs with some of the program dollars that are there, small communities like to get everything done at the same time. I’m sure the Minister is aware that that’s an issue.
I would just like to speak a little bit about the homelessness supports. It references the Anti-Poverty Strategy Framework. We are investing $680,000 in four new transitional housing units. I know that I raised this with my communities. When we try to address homelessness, I don’t know if it’s old parameters or guidelines, but I think it was $40,000 per community. It was told to me that they can’t really do too much with $40,000, so I was just wondering: how does the Minister see the $680,000 rolling out? Does he see an actual unit being built in a small community to address homelessness? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
The $680,000 is not to actually build brand new units. We will take existing units in the community and we will retrofit them so they’re suitable for hard-to-house clients. Part of that money will be earmarked for working with a local organization who might want to run this particular program in the community for us. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
So that’s a little bit clearer. One of my communities started working on a proposal and then they ran into an issue and weren’t sure where to get a unit. Do they approach the district office for their particular community to see if there’s an older unit that can be retrofitted and not scheduled for repairs for homeownership? I’m pretty sure the Housing Corporation can assist communities as they develop their application and try to do something for homelessness in our small, little remote communities. Thanks.
