Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment with regard to Section 3.3 of the Rent Supplement Program, accommodations, rent or mortgage. In one of the sections, it explains that a client and his or her dependents can receive assistance for accommodation. Accommodation includes rent, mortgage, tax or fire insurance.
I’d like to ask the Minister, in some cases and possibly when a person is in foreclosure or not able to pay up their bills for the month because either something happened that they got less income coming in, would they be able to apply under this rental Section 3.3, this Rent Supplement Program to cover off their mortgage costs?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
When issues like this arise, my department, more specifically through client service officers, work with those clientele. We’ve been working with our clientele since the beginning of the month on a constant basis, trying to assist them in various ways either through a medical note and so forth. We provide funding to their needs according to the policies that have been highlighted, so it’s based on that, these individuals who qualify for eligibility for the standard rate for their community. Those are just some of the subsidies that we provide to those individuals that are in need of our subsidy program.
More specifically to mortgage for anybody that might have gotten into trouble with keeping up to date on their payments for their mortgage for their houses, a lot of people probably don’t even know this program exists. There’s one here specifically for mortgage under Section 5.1, and I just want to confirm that if somebody went into arrears for a month or two but didn’t know how to pay off their mortgage and they went to ECE, that they can access this program to get their mortgage paid for. I’m not asking for anybody in particular, I’m just asking in general for anybody out in the public.
Section 5.1 that the Member is alluding to does cover the rent or mortgage and others that are necessary, and now to cover the cost of their rent may be provided on behalf of a single client. For a single disabled client, up to a maximum of $900 is available to those individuals. Again, clients with dependents are eligible for a maximum of… There’s another cost factor to that too. These are just some of the subsidies that are available through Section 5.1 that the Member is referring to, and it does cover the rent, the mortgage that has been highlighted in circumstances as what we are referring to today.
Still within Section 3.3, it talks about officers must consider the needs of a client and his or her dependents when considering the size and type of the housing need, so is it solely on the officers when they make a recommendation for an individual and type of dwelling that they’ll be receiving and the type of housing need that they’ll have, based on what the officer sees and whether or not there might be some other issues such as some of our seniors, such as disabilities, such as other issues that might affect the client.
Is there another way that these clients can be assessed when they’re going through the process?
Various times when a client approaches our department through client service officers, the directors often get involved as well. It can be decided on a case-by-case basis where assistance is needed and required. Obviously, pertaining to that would be receiving the rent and how long the assistance will be provided. Those are just on an as-needed basis and particularly when a situation that we’re faced with today that these directors, the client service officers have been engaged with the client and will continue to do so.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
There’s another section in this Section 3.3, and it deals with clients with dependents are eligible for up to, or they’re just eligible for rent or mortgage or whatever it’s going to be called, but I just want to know if there is a definition for dependents, whether it’s a person’s parent, a person’s grandparent, a child, it could be an uncle or an aunt that needs some assistance because they might be elderly as well. Can I get an understanding of dependents and whether or not when we’re applying the clients, that our couples are classified as just one client?
There are times when we say client whether it be a couple, but I can get that information for the Member on the more specific if it’s dependents what that pertains to. I don’t have the exact information here before me, but I can provide that detailed breakdown for the Member on the definition of dependents and others that he questioned earlier.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
