Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I talked about the need for a housing development plan for Tu Nedhe communities. I’d like to follow up now with questions for the Minister of Housing. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me if the NWT Housing Corporation has a plan for some sort of a community specific housing development plan for the non-market communities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have developed plans in many of our communities, some very comprehensive, some pretty straightforward in terms of just delivering the capital, and we are currently basing our plans for investment, as the Member is aware, on a 2004 needs assessment. In some of the communities we’ve been able to engage the local government and the LHO, and the NWT Housing Corporation headquarters, and the local leadership to talk about some fairly comprehensive planning that includes dealing with some of the public housing stock, future homeownership programs and also removing some of the abandoned units, and also to do some work in the area of land development and land planning. So it is something that we support; it is something that we’d like to do in all the communities. However, it’s something that is very difficult to move forward unless we have input from many different people. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister, for the response. Will the Minister commit to implementing such a housing plan in both communities of Tu Nedhe: Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution? Thank you.
The Housing Corporation, of course, is always very open to having those discussions. We’ve managed to make some considerable headway in one of the Member’s communities. I think Lutselk’e has done a lot of good work in terms of planning for housing, investment housing development. We need to follow through on that and a lot of our other communities. As we move forward and review our results of the 2009 Community Needs Survey, I’d like to see us do more of this type of work. I’d certainly like to work with the Member to implement a similar plan in the community of Fort Resolution.
I’m aware that a lot of the planning obviously has already taken place, especially in communities where we have to barge the stuff in. I’m fairly pleased with the plan for Lutselk’e. I was wondering if the Minister could provide a copy of any sort of plan or draft copy of any sort of plan that could be available for the Tu Nedhe communities.
I’d be more than willing to share all of the information that we have compiled in terms of investment and plans for the communities, especially in the Member’s riding. We have certainly been encouraging our regional staff to get into the communities, to talk to the leaders, to share our own housing programs, to share the specifics of all the different areas that we have in terms of support: with our public housing initiatives, with our homeownership programs, our educational programs, our financial counselling programs. As we move forward, we will be starting to develop lands for presentation to the Members. We expect to have our 2004 Needs Survey done very shortly and we would be glad to share that with the Members of this House.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you. As indicated in my Member’s statement and mentioned by the Minister, a needs survey is very important. I was wondering if the Minister could tell me specifically when the results of the needs survey can be available for use.
The time frame for the community needs assessment for 2009 I expect to have in my hands by the end of June. I would be pleased to share that with Members. As we move forward, putting our investment plan to the communities for the communities, I would also be pleased to roll that out. I would hope to have everything all compiled and ready for sharing with the Members. There is a number of areas that we’d have to work towards in some of the communities such as the Member’s indicated for time frames, schedules, and clear roles and responsibilities. But we’ll move that forward as fast as we can and share it with the Members.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
