Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. During my Member’s statement I spoke about housing and I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation questions. Last year the Housing Corporation had $8.5 million allocated in the area of house repairs. In the 2011-12 main estimates, the amount is reduced to $5.6 million. I would like to ask the Minister if he could return the funding from $5.6 million to $8.5 million in this area. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The money that we’d allocated last year for home repair, if you recall, our last year’s budget was $75 million and that was the final year of the federal investment. This year our overall budget is $27 million and a good portion of that is going towards repairs. If you base it on a percentage-wise, I think we’re doing more towards repair this year. We’ve had some units that were proposed to go up, HELP units. We’ve taken those. I think we have four that are proposed to go up this year. We’re taking the money from that and putting it into more home repair, because we do recognize that a significant investment has to continue to be made in home repair.
From the information in the 2009 Housing Corporation Needs Survey, about 80, maybe a little higher, around 80 percent of the communities have adequacy issues as a main core need problem. This is the reason I’m asking for at least this amount to be returned, in spite of the fact that we have less money overall. Will the Minister direct his senior staff to address the needs in accordance with the NWT Housing Corporation 2009 Needs Survey?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We continue to have discussions as senior management on how we can allocate more funding into the home repair. There are opportunities to move some money around and put it into home repairs, and we’re always open to that because we do recognize, as the Member does, that we do need to have a fairly good investment into the home repair, so that would deal with a lot of the adequacy issues we face in some of the small communities.
It’s my belief that part of the issues with the delivery of home repairs is communication. I feel that best communication is to the Housing Corporation to deliver programs through a decentralized model. Will the Minister examine the possibility of creating a decentralized model and put program officers and project officers in the communities where they’re delivering programs?
In the past we had community liaison officers in some of the communities, but the funding for that was deleted in anticipation of the government service officers coming on board. I believe we have eight communities now that are piloting this particular program. The NWT Housing Corporation was working closely with the Executive as to what we see these folks doing on our behalf in the communities. I believe in one of the Member’s communities there is a government services officer. So this is a pilot project right now. Once we’re able to see the results of this, it may be something that is expanded in the future.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree that is a positive step, and a step in the right direction with the individuals working in the communities for the GNWT. However, the people in the communities are seeing the program officers and project officers as the key to delivering. No matter how well the corporation advertises, I still walk into elders’ homes and they’re still waiting for somebody to come visit them. I’m wondering if the Minister can direct the staff to ensure that the delivery staff and program officers are going door to door. If there’s an individual there to work with the clients or the community officers in the communities from the Executive and work with them to go door to door to visit the elders when they’re delivering housing programs.
I have made commitments in this House in the past that we would try and get to as many folks in the communities, especially seniors, that would like to put in applications. I’ve made commitments to also have someone come along and interpret some of the programs so they’re more understanding of the programs that we offer and they’re able to fill out the applications a lot more accurately with the help of an interpreter. I have made those commitments.
As far as going door to door, that would require a great deal of time and resources. We prefer that those who feel that they need some work done or would like to fill out an application, contact us and then we will go to their units again, along with an interpreter if the need is there.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
