Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation. I want to ask the Minister what type of solutions the corporation will be looking at in decreasing the number of evictions in Deline and probably other communities in the Northwest Territories, but I wanted to ask about Deline in regard to the evictions.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; there have been some eviction notices that were given out in Deline. Some of these tenants have gone through the rental officer. There were some conditions that were laid out. Most of these tenants did not meet the conditions of those. They didn’t meet the conditions so the eviction process was underway. Thank you.
Thank you. I want to ask the Minister about solutions. I know there’s probably going to be other eviction notices to residents in the Sahtu, in the Northwest Territories. Can the Housing Corporation work with the people in the communities to see if they could work out some arrangements so that these eviction notices are not hanging out in huge, large numbers?
Thank you. There are a lot of solutions that we can come up with. One of the first solutions is have all tenants pay their rent and for those that do fall into arrears, it’s not something that just happens on the spur of the moment. It’s usually a year-long process. They’re given many opportunities to address their arrears. They can speak to the boards, then they go to the rental officer and he’ll lay out some conditions. If they meet the terms of those conditions, then the termination won’t go ahead.
The trouble we have is a lot of times we get to the rental officer, he does put some conditions on, tenants do not meet them; therefore, they have to be terminate. But we do try to work with the tenants. There are repayment plans that they can enter into to help clear off their arrears and that’s a message that we as a Housing Corp are trying to get out there so the folks know that they can work out a repayment plan and continue to occupy their units. Thank you.
Thank you. I’ve been reading the latest NWT survey, the housing component. The result and the adequacy are unacceptable in terms of housing in the Northwest Territories. I think if you were to do that in Deline right now in terms of the survey, the adequacy percentage would go right up. I guess in terms of working out an arrangement with the Housing Corporation around eviction, you know, in our small communities unemployment is very, very high. There’s not very much economic activity happening there. Can the Minister look within his department to look at arrangements where tenants can work off these arrears rather than pay out of their pocket? Can that be looked at?
Thank you. That is one of the options that we looked at, one of the options that was discussed at the Ministers’ forum that I held recently attended by the Housing Corporation employees from across the NWT along with a couple of MLAs and there were a lot of ideas floating around. That was one of them. There is a liability issue, but it would be something I think that would have to be initiated by the LHOs and if everything falls in place as far as insurance and liability go, I think it’s something that they’d be willing to explore. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister work with the LHOs and the corporation in terms of direct, maybe -- I’m not sure if that’s the proper word -- the LHOs to work out some final arrangements as to tenants working off the arrears rather than have the eviction notice follow through? People right now are living in shacks, warehouses and tents in Deline. We need to get them back into units, for safety reasons and many other reasons I do not want to elaborate on. Would the Minister do that as soon as possible?
The LHOs basically operate or are run by a board. We do have some involvement in the financing that we provide to them. The Minister doesn’t normally give direction or orders to the LHOs. We can raise concerns with them, but we’ll continue to try and do what we can as a corporation to help tenants across the Northwest Territories deal with the arrears issue.
We’re $10 million in public housing arrears right now and with the money from the federal government declining, it’s important more than ever to start collecting on some of these arrears. It is something that’s on our radar and something that we’re following up on and hoping to have some options that we can discuss with the committee.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
