Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I talked about a desperate situation that many of my constituents have in their housing needs. I have questions for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation.
Many constituents in Tu Nedhe want to know how the Housing Corporation is supposed to keep building brand new houses for $250,000 and then leave them vacant for years while families are in need. Can the Minister tell me if the Housing Corporation is looking at other options to help meet housing needs in the communities?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re always looking for ways to improve the delivery of houses and especially in the communities, because that is where the greatest demand is that we’ve seen from the needs survey that was just completed on some of the demands in some of the communities. We’re always working to meet the need there. We also have concerns, as the Member has pointed out, with the number of units that are built and left vacant. We’re taking steps to address that. We are working with the communities, who are coming up with some good solutions as to how best we can use those units. We’re continually working on ways to improve the delivery of houses into the communities.
Can the Minister tell me if there is a time limit in which the NWT Housing Corporation will allow units to sit empty in a community?
Offhand, I’m not quite sure about a time limit. I could follow up on that and get back to the Member. I do know that when a unit is sitting vacant in a community for too long or what the community feels is too long, then the community or the Members will usually let us know that there are some vacant units in the community that haven’t been filled and then we’ll take steps to try and address that and come up with the way we can fill these units.
Can the Minister tell me if the NWT Housing Corporation has developed plans for what’s going to happen in the communities? Of course, I’m specifically interested in Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e for this construction season. If he’s able to tell me what is going to happen in Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e.
We’re always developing plans on how we’re going to deliver houses into the community. I think part of that plan is the process that we’re going through right now with the budget process. The Housing Corporation’s infrastructure is still a part of this particular budget, so once we review that, we’ll be able to see some of the investments that we’re making into the communities and which communities they are going into. As well, we have a table of all the money that we have through federal money that is going to the communities through major MNIs and improving the public housing stock. We have all that information that I’d be more than willing to share with the Member so that he can see firsthand the amount of money that’s going into his riding.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Sorry, Mr. Speaker. With the new needs survey just completed, which I haven’t seen yet, I know that there’s definitely some needs for the seniors living in their own homes in Tu Nedhe. Can the Minister tell me if the Housing Corporation is going to be establishing anything insofar as repairs go that is specific to helping the seniors that are homeowners in our small communities?
The Housing Corporation goes a long way into assisting homeownership clients through repairs and trying to get people into homes. We have some challenges that we face. There is a gap of people that we’re looking to try and capture. I’ve given instructions to the corporation to see if we can start capturing a lot of those people who are quite capable of looking after homes, but for one reason or another are not qualifying at the moment. There are a lot of programs designed for the seniors through the preventative maintenance, where they go in every fall to do the maintenance in their units. There are home repairs for seniors that I know for a fact a lot of seniors are taking the corporation up on. When they do qualify, they get some work done to the house. As I said, we’re always looking for ways to improve the delivery of houses and repairs into the communities, and with input from Regular Members on a regular basis, we continue to do that.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
