Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank Minister Ramsay, Mr. Vician and Ms. Magrum for their time this evening. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms if he’ll escort the witnesses out of the Chamber.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, committee.
Okay, committee, moving on. We’re going to be dealing with section 5 on NWT Housing Corporation. Does the Minister of the Housing Corporation have any opening comments?
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.
Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Please proceed, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 2012-13 Main Estimates for the NWT Housing Corporation. The main estimates propose a budget of $113.209 million, an increase of 0.3 percent from the 2011-2012 Main Estimates.
The budget includes a contribution of $65.458 million from the GNWT for 2012-2013. As Members are aware, one of the five priorities identified by the 17th Legislative Assembly was to address housing needs. Housing is a complex issue in many of our communities. There are significant differences in housing needs and challenges between our market and non-market communities, and there are needs along the entire housing continuum from homelessness to home ownership. Our approach to housing should strengthen self-reliance and support residents in meeting their own shelter needs, but also needs to recognize the importance of housing in supporting community sustainability, contributing to efforts to reduce poverty and to reflect the linkages between housing and education and health issues.
Of course, these challenges need to be addressed in the context of declining federal funding to support social housing in the Northwest Territories. Public housing continues to be the largest program offered by the NWT Housing Corp with approximately 2,400 units and planned expenditures of $43.9 million in 2012-2013.
A number of actions are being taken in 2012-13 to improve public housing. The new rent scale will be implemented on July 1, 2012, and will make rents simpler, more predictable and fairer. This new rent scale also addresses a disincentive to work that has long been a standing concern.
In 2012-13 over $15 million will be spent to improve the quality of our public housing stock. This will include 26 public housing replacements, 130 major retrofits and a variety of minor maintenance and improvement projects. These investments build on the $141 million we have invested in public housing stock over the past six years.
The 2012-13 budget also contains a $2.4 million forced growth investment to offset the increased utility costs related to public housing. While some successes have been achieved on the consumption side with the energy investments and investments in upgraded stock, these don’t completely offset the rising costs for utilities. An additional $700,000 has been identified to continue the energy upgrades on public housing during 2012-13.
Finally, the budget also contains an investment of $511,000 to support the operating costs of 27 additional public housing units that have been added in Gameti, Wekweeti, Whati, Jean Marie River, Trout Lake and Nahanni Butte.
In support of home ownership in the Northwest Territories, the NWT Housing Corp will spend approximately $10 million in 2012-13. A new emergency repair program called SAFE will be introduced and $1 million has been allocated to support this program. SAFE provides support to low and modest income homeowners to address emergency repair situations like freeze-ups, heating system failures and major electrical problems. Unlike other NWT Housing Corp repair programs, this program will be available at any time during the year. There will be a streamlined application process and the eligibility criteria will be broader than for most programs.
Changes will also be made to the CARE program during 2012-13. That will expand accessibility to the preventative maintenance activities for low-income homeowners. Overall, the CARE program will help about 300 homeowners complete repairs to their homes during 2012-13. In addition to the public housing program during 2012-13, the NWT will spend about $5.9 million supporting other rental housing. This spending includes administration and maintenance associated with 117 market rentals, 335 households operating under our HELP and Supported Lease programs and 483 homes operated by community-based organizations.
This year we are also introducing the Transitional Rent Supplement Program. This Rent Supplement Program will provide financial support to reduce the affordability problems and core need among residents and market rentals. The Rent Supplement Program will provide clients with up to $500 per month for a two-year period. The subsidy will be paid directly to landlords. This program will address a gap in the housing continuum, identified during the shelter policy review related to the high shelter costs for the working poor living in market rentals. We expect the $1.2 million investment will provide assistance to approximately 175 households. Implementation will start in September and we are planning a quarterly phase-in to ensure continuous uptake.
Starting in 2012-13, the NWT Housing Corporation has taken over responsibility for the administration of the Homelessness Assistance Fund and the Small Community Homelessness Fund. These main estimates reflect the transfer of $325,000 for these two programs from the Department of Health and Social Services. A homelessness coordinator will be added in 2012-13. In addition to being responsible for the administration of these two programs, this position will act as a focal point for the GNWT homelessness activities. The individual will work with federal funding agencies, community groups, and coordinate with other GNWT departments that support programs to address homelessness by chairing the GNWT Homelessness Committee.
Two additional priorities during 2012-13 will be to complete an evaluation of the two programs being transferred from Health and Social Services and work with smaller communities on homelessness activities. Work will also be done to continue advanced planning for the NWT Housing Corporation investments in Betty House, the planned 30-unit transition home for women and children in Yellowknife.
In 2012-13, there will also be a number of other activities planned to help strengthen management of our housing program. For example, on April 1st, we introduced our new territorial housing system which is a centralized information management system that dramatically increases our capacity to monitor and manage our programs. This new system provides real time information on key indicators like waiting lists, rent collection and arrears and occupancy.
A new Maintenance Management Program will be developed during 2012-13. These systems lower the workload of our community partners, the local housing organizations and allow the NWT Housing Corporation to better support them. The main estimates also include increased capacity for training and workshops with LHO staff, and during this year, opportunities for bulk purchasing, will be examined to lower overall operating costs. A broad base examination will also be undertaken on the approach to the delivery of housing services at a community level. This will include looking at roles and responsibilities and a funding model for LHOs.
On the revenue side, as it was noted previously, our efforts to address housing needs are further challenged by the declining federal funding for operating social housing. As Members know, the GNWT will see reduced annual funding of $2.1 million over the life of this Assembly as part of the ongoing declines that we will see all federal funding for operating social housing eliminated by 2037-38. For these main estimates, an investment of $990,000 was made by the GNWT to offset the federal decline in 2012-13.
The other major revenue change relates to an additional investment of $1 million made by the GNWT to offset the initial revenue decline expected with the implementation of the new public housing rent scale.
That concludes my opening remarks. At this time I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee members, you may notice you may have a few pages missing in your opening comments. Copies will be sent down to you shortly. Mr. McLeod, do you have any witnesses you would like to bring into the Chamber?
Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.
Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you very much, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Minister McLeod, would you like to introduce your witnesses to the committee, please?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have with me to my right Mr. David Stewart, president and CEO of the NWT Housing Corporation; and to my left I have Mr. Jeff Anderson, vice-president of finance and infrastructure, NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Stewart, Mr. Anderson, welcome back to the House. At this time we’d like to open committee to general comments. The floor is open for general comments. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have to say that I’m pleased with many of the moves that are taking place with the new approach to housing recently proposed and I’ll be looking forward to chatting about some of the details.
I guess my first question would be on this year’s financial approach. The $700,000 additional dollars identified to continue the energy upgrade in public housing, how many upgrades would $700,000 typically support for energy upgrades? How many houses could be upgraded for that amount? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. As we indicated, Mr. Bromley, we are going to do general comments collectively, so I’ll let you continue if you like. The Minister will intend to correspond accordingly to each Member in one statement. Mr. Bromley.
Thanks for that reminder, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the SAFE program. I think that’s a better approach than we’ve had in the past. When I’ve had occasion to work in small communities especially, I’ve noticed a real need for something like that. I’m glad to see the Minister come up with this solution. I hope he will be monitoring and doing evaluation on this. I think it could be a bit preventative in the long run. If that turns out to be the case, I think we want to be capturing that and maybe even bump up that investment towards lowering long-term costs.
The preventative maintenance, good program, I’m just going over the Minister’s remarks that I do have in hand here. I think the Transitional Rent Supplement Program looks good. I believe the Minister said we have about $900,000 – I’m going off recollection here – that we’re having to divvy up for that we’re not getting from CMHC this year and we’re putting in about another $1 million for the new rent scale. A question in that regard would be do we expect if there is improved success at collecting rent from this approach, that we would eventually see that amount decrease and start to have the program moved towards paying for itself more than it currently is.
In the new rent scale program, there is still some discussion to be had with regard to seniors’ rent. I have had occasion to meet with seniors and I’m not getting the sense that they were satisfied with the degree of consultation that’s been had on that. In the big picture, I do agree with seniors paying rent. But I want to be sure that those that need special recognition get it, especially in communities that have an extremely high cost of living or even the 70 or 80 or 90 dollars proposed might be significant.
I will just leave my general comments at that and I’ll be interested to hearing a response from the Minister and any further comments from my colleagues. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. General comments. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Housing Corporation, just in the short time I’ve been here, are just trying to set up some signposts in terms of a quick evolution. I think last fall we heard it quite clear, the overwhelming concerns about people in terms of trying to aspire at the end of the day to maintain a living in communities and, at the same time, become homeowners in their own home community. As a result, it was an ongoing effort in terms of trying to remedy the rental system to make it fairly equitable so people in communities found it at least doable at the community level, and trying to survive the high cost of living and the depressing job opportunities. People are challenged at that level.
So there was a level during the shelter review policy to try to change the system. As a result of that, we also had a moratorium in terms of evicting people. Now we have an effort in terms of our new rent scale.
I applaud the Housing Corporation for taking those steps, but I still feel there is still some contrast. At the end of the day, people that want to should be given an opportunity to own their own homes. We all live in almost like a market system. At the end of the day, you try to encourage people to buy their own homes. That’s the way to go. That’s how the Canadian system works.
The circumstances of the Northwest Territories are fairly unique. People are challenged at the local level to try to purchase their own homes. They have to rent. They don’t have much choice.
One of the points I wanted to make is I drew up an example earlier. People who have lived in a house and rented for the past 30 or 40 years, raised their families in there, are still paying rent to this day. At some point would the department consider perhaps some creative options? They are fiscally challenged. If you are fiscally challenged, surely we should try to look for some solutions in terms of meeting the needs of people in delivering programs and services. Perhaps we will have to look upon other people for their ideas. So be it.
There has to be some options of trying to encourage people to own their own homes. If people do own their own homes, of course they will have some responsibility of maintaining their house and in turn they will have a level of assurance that one of their basic needs is covered and they are free to move about in the community and become positive contributors to society in general.
Speaking of contrast, we still have some very stark contrasts in communities. People continue to go through the challenges of being evicted. But at the same time, we still have empty houses in the communities. It’s something that perhaps the department has to consider, at least be aware. I mean, truly you must be aware. But it’s just contrasting in some communities where people try to survive, try to measure up to paying their rent and at some point if they default, they face the ultimate consequence of being evicted, but then you see an empty house that’s unoccupied and they have to make ends meet.
So those are just some points that I’ve kind of noticed. The point is that I think we have to try to be creative and have to try to at least inspire people to own their own homes and see if there are ways about how we could make it possible.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Moving in general comments, I have Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The comments I have, I could probably talk for two days on housing, but we only have a certain amount of time here. So I’m going to get right to the point.
The point is that we have a desperate need for good quality energy-efficient homes in our communities. We have people in our homes who are living in houses that were built in the late ‘70s, ‘80s that need attention in terms of the energy retrofits. I have gone to communities in the last month, during the winter, and the houses are not fit for the communities because they’re shifting in the ground and that, and the doors are not shutting properly. The furnaces are turned right up. Upstairs it’s hot, but downstairs it’s just cold. The floors are in pretty bad shape. These are some of the older units. So, Mr. Chair, the Minister and his staff are doing a lot of catch-up on a lot of these units.
The federal funding he talked about is declining. We are in a situation where the federal government is going to cut us off from housing, social housing in 2038. Yet we have a lot of our people that depend on these units. There are a number of people in the tons of e-mails here that show that they do not qualify for the programs. You either make too much or you make too little. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t kind of situation with the people. So we have empty units in our communities. The Minister knows about this. I’ve taken Minister Beaulieu and Minister Abernethy to Colville Lake and we have seen those empty units in Colville Lake for the last three years. Nobody can apply for them. Same with in Deline. The Minister has provided me with some information and I appreciate it. There’s been 23 units that are under repair. I’ve gone back there the last month and these units are still sitting empty and people are still living with other people for over a year.
So we have a real crisis in our communities. These units are empty; we can’t get them in for some odd reason. Our programs do not quite make it for them to get in. They’ve either got bad credit, arrears, a whole gamut of reasons why we can’t get a family into it and they’re still sitting empty. I think I can ask the Minister to look right across the Northwest Territories. You will see how many empty units are boarded up, people not getting in them. There is something not right for us.
The Minister made his opening comments. There are some things in there that I liked what the Minister said. The first time I hear the Minister talking about the Small Community Homeless Program. If we are going to start charging rent to elders, we are probably going to have some homeless elders, based on income support and household income. We are finally getting a Homeless Fund for small communities. There are 27 small communities. We are going to spend $300,000 in our communities. There are six market communities. We need help in our small communities.
The Minister has some programs here that I think he is making some changes to the way we do our business with housing. I want to say that the one biggest one that I am going to put up a fight is the charging of the rent for the seniors. I don’t think we need to do that. We are taking $300,000. This government here is going to be charging rent to the seniors. They say it is $80 or $90, but it is household income. In the future, the elders are going to have difficulty paying their rent.
We had a meeting with the NWT Seniors’ Society. They told us about this. The NWT Seniors’ Society represents the seniors. They told us that they needed more time. The way they explained it is that they should have met and talked with them and consulted with them and talked to the elders in the Sahtu. Housing should have been talking to them and this is what they want to do. How can we work this out together?
I’m glad the Minister made some changes to the employment, because that is what we talked about. That is what my constituents talked about, an incentive for young people to go to work and not be hit with skyrocketing rent once they get a job and then it goes back down. That is what we talked about. We did not talk about elders being charged rent, not from my side. I don’t know who in the district or in headquarters said let’s do this and let’s push it through. Not the Seniors’ Society because they told us that is not done by them. They did not support it. They gave us a letter saying delay it, do an analysis. This government here is willing to do that, to charge seniors rent. That is what should be known before the implementation goes through, all good things that you are going to be doing. We the 17th that is charging elders rent for what, $300,000? You could find some money. We can find it together. Leave them alone.
This one here – there are good things you did in housing – but this one here bugs me. I go back to the community and say why they are charging this. Even the Seniors’ Society said that. They do not agree with this government so much that they didn’t even take your guys’ money, the $20,000. They refuse to take it on principle. You give them $20,000 for a contribution and they told us they didn’t take it. That is serious stuff. So for myself, I said we could do a lot of good things, but this one, this one bothers me. It bothers my people; it bothers the elders that I represent. We should delay it, look at it, go back and talk to my elders. You’re pushing this one down. You’re pushing this implementation, this policy. You’re pushing it down the elders’ throats. They never discussed it. Talk with us.
So for me, Mr. Chair, when I go back to my region and I talk to the elders, they have told me is people are not very happy. This is the government that’s going to do this to the elders. We need to sit and talk about it a little more.
For $325,000 or $35,000, I don’t know where your thinking is at.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. General comments. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few comments on the CARE program. I see it’s mostly geared towards low-income homeowners. Up in the riding of the Mackenzie Delta, I mentioned earlier today we have many people, especially in the community of Aklavik – which is isolated a good portion of the year – that pay almost double the prices of food and gas compared to other areas of the territory. We have a number of people in the community who would like to access funding, whether it’s for replacing a roof or doing major repairs to their homes. They aren’t eligible for the funding that’s available because they are told they make too much, yet they’re barely getting by. I’m hopeful that’s something we can all work towards over the next while to make those sorts of changes.
I noticed also in the Mackenzie Delta that there will be mostly repairs that are being done, but I’ve noticed there are a lot of new places that have gone up over the last year or two. I’m hopeful in next year’s budget I will see some multiplex units going up in the region.
I know in the community of Tsiigehtchic a lot of the units are full, so I think there’s a need there in the community for more units. At the moment, those are the only comments I have. Thank you.
I do have a couple more people to speak on general comments, but noting the time I will now rise and report progress. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move we report progress.
---Carried
