Mr. Speaker, over the years in my tenure as Minister of Education since 2007, I’ve visited so many schools in the Northwest Territories, and each school has their own incentive program to deal with absenteeism and also have regular attendance. I must commend those individual school boards for making that effort. We always support them as well.
Through the Education Renewal there are opportunities such as dual credit courses that we are starting to offer in the high school, whether it be early childhood focused or trades access programming that we are seriously looking at delivering to our high school system.
The Member has brought it to my attention that this is an area that we should be focusing on and we are working towards that as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Time for oral questions has expired. Item 8, written questions. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 5 on the Order Paper, recognition of visitors in the gallery.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize two visitors with us in the gallery today: Ms. Cathie Bolstad, executive director, NWT Tourism, and also with her is Mr. Ron Ostrom. He’s the director of marketing with NWT Tourism. I want to thank both of them for all the great work they do in our partnership in marketing the Northwest Territories around the world. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize Cathie Bolstad, a resident of Weledeh.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too wish to recognize Cathie Bolstad with NWT Tourism. As well, I’d like to recognize a constituent of Yellowknife Centre which is Ron Ostrom. Many people will also recognize him from the many walks and journeys he has made around Frame Lake. He really did a great job promoting exercise and active living.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “2015-2016 Marketing Plan: Spectacular Northwest Territories.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, I have a document from the Fraser Institute dated December 2014, Managing the Risks of Hydraulic Fracking.
Pursuant to Section 21 of the Human Rights Act, I wish to table the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission Annual Report, 2013-2014.
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. There are three items before us today. What is the wish of the committee? Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m sure we want to continue with Tabled Document 188-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2015-16. We’d like to continue with the NWT Housing Corporation and, time permitting, do the Department of Justice. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Agreed. Thank you. We’ll commence with that after a brief break. Thank you.
---SHORT RECESS
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Yesterday when we recessed, we were on the NWT Housing Corporation. The Minister had delivered his opening comments and Members were making general comments. I’d like to ask the Minister at this time, in continuance of that, if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber. Minister McLeod.
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair, I would.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Agreed. Thank you. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms if he will please escort the witnesses to the table.
Mr. McLeod, for the record could you please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right I have Mr. David Stewart. He is the president of the NWT Housing Corporation. To my left I have Mr. Jeff Anderson, vice-president of infrastructure and finance, NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. For general comments from the list left from yesterday I have Mr. Yakeleya. Did you want to make general comments? Okay, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I welcome the Minister and his staff. I wanted to make my general comments to the latest NWT Housing Community Survey and the summary of the housing results.
I see in the core need that in the Northwest Territories with market communities, the core need is at 13.1 percent and in the non-market communities the core need is at 32.3 percent. If you look at the definition of core needs, it has to do with suitability, adequacy and affordability of housing. Under those definitions, certainly the non-market communities are just about triple the number in the core need than the market communities. So, we have a large difference in these numbers.
Earlier Mr. Menicoche talked about being number one in his riding under the findings of the survey. Just below that by a couple numbers, the Sahtu falls at number two. Looking at the comparison to the 2009 results of the housing survey, the Housing Corporation certainly has done a lot. So I want to give my thanks to the Minister and his staff for bringing those numbers down in the Sahtu communities.
I also noticed in the other ridings, some of the communities are fairly high. Like, Behchoko and Whati are fairly high and the Hay River Reserve is pretty high and the same with Fort Providence and Wrigley. So just looking at some of these numbers, some of the communities are still very high. But the overall, when you look at the region, the Sahtu is right up there, minus the town of Norman Wells which is very low, similar to the same number in Yellowknife.
I wanted to say to the Minister that I certainly agree with you. There is a significant difference in housing between our market and non-market communities. I just wanted to state that I do want to say to the Minister that I’m looking forward to seeing where some of the programs are meeting some of the needs in the small communities.
I was recently in Fort Good Hope and some of the older people who came up to me were more or less just surviving the cold weather. With the types of programs that we’re offering, it’s not meeting the needs of the elders in regard to the condition of their housing. They’re pretty well frozen right up to the pipes, to the furnace, to whatever. They’re just barely making it in these cold conditions. Because of the complexities or some of the issues not being taken care of, it’s quite difficult to get some of the programs into their hands so their houses can be fixed.
Some of these elders have frozen lines, frozen toilets, frozen sinks, even furnaces. They have furnace problems and they’re not getting the help through working with them to see how we can get them the money to get their houses fixed. They’re having quite a difficult time because it involved another department, the Department of Lands to be involved. So they find it difficult to get some support.
I guess what I’m saying is that some of these elders are in their 70s, they don’t speak English very well, they don’t understand the documents they have in front of them. All they know is my pipes are frozen, the toilet is frozen and I just want them to get them fixed, but sometimes the bureaucracy and the red tape is a little more challenging for them and they don’t understand or comprehend the language or understand what’s in the fine print.
So that’s when they come to leadership and ask to get Housing to work on their house. That’s really challenging. I know that the staff in our region is working hard. It’s just that sometimes it takes a little more work. When it’s 44 or 50 below, they’re sitting at home, cold and trying to figure out, okay, how do we get something going with their houses.
So I look forward to some of those innovative types of learning, teaching for our seniors in regard to their homes. Can we look at ways to make it simpler? Can we look at ways to get quicker service to their houses? So I want to see some movement in that area.
I also want to see if Housing, through the programs in our small communities, especially to the community of Fort Good Hope, maybe further to Colville Lake, that the way they ship their materials, it’s usually late in the season and this year the barging was late because of the low water, or whatever reason, and some of the materials weren’t shipped to the communities. That’s my understanding. Is there a possibility of getting housing material on the barges by June and shipped to the communities so they’ve got July and August and September to work on their houses? I’m hearing that some of the materials came in late. I’m not too sure, but that’s what we’re getting from the community of Fort Good Hope.
I do want to say that the programs that are being run, we’re starting to see some of the improvements in our communities. The units that are being fixed up are starting to result, because of the way that the regional offices are working with the small communities in places like Good Hope that seems to have the highest need, Colville Lake seems to have the second highest, first highest need, followed by Good Hope and Deline that they have a high percentage of core need. Meaning that there’s a problem with suitability, affordability and the adequacy of our units.
There are also a lot of people who own their own homes in these communities that also are looking for some support with their units. I know the Minister and I talked about this several times where the local housing authority, through their bulk ordering of materials and supplies, can have some of this stuff available for homeowners, because homeowners are usually left on their own to get the material for their house. I’m not too sure if that has been implemented or if it has been talked about.
I want to thank the Minister. I look forward to Fort Good Hope getting their units. I know last year it didn’t happen. I wasn’t a happy camper, but I said okay, as long as it gets done this year for whatever reason people were looking forward to it. However, we said okay, let’s see if we can get it done this year. So I’m looking forward to seeing that being built this year and I know Good Hope is looking forward to that.
So I do want to say to the Minister, keep fighting this with the federal government, this is an issue that is on our minds as to the decline of our funding. So those are my comments, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Yakeleya, did your want the Minister to respond now or did you want to go with the system we had of hearing three general comments and then… Three? Okay, very good. Then next on the list for general comments I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. More just comments. No particular questions for the Housing Corp here. Just over the course, this is the fourth time we’ve sat down with the department in terms of our operational budgets. I remember at the onset of the 17th Legislative Assembly and the Auditor General’s report that came out that had some pretty scathing results that I think committee of the day was just raring to go with this Housing Corp in terms of looking at getting to the work.
Even before they came to committee they started taking the necessary approaches to make the changes that would affect that work coming out of the Auditor General’s report. I just want to commend the work of the Minister and his staff and all the LHOs in the regions on the improvements that have been made over the course of these last three years. Just the correspondence that they’ve had with standing committee, whether it was through written correspondence or briefing and for committee not having to approach the Housing Corporation to sit down and have a chat, or if there were any concerns that were brought up that was always very neutral in terms of how information was delivered, especially on the collection rates.
Early on in this government, as well, we did have a presentation by Alternatives North in terms of the Anti-Poverty Strategy and moving forward on that. I recall us asking Alternatives North if there was one thing that we could fix to deal with poverty; they said housing, housing needs to be fixed. Just looking at some of these new initiatives that the Housing Corp has come out with over the past year in terms of addressing homelessness but also dealing with some of the wait times with our public housing, the new funding that’s coming over from ECE into the Housing Corp to look at getting some work at rental units for the security of tenure for our residents for longer term is just some innovative thinking in making sure that our people have a place to stay for the longer term, and I think that’s the kind of thinking that we need in terms of addressing our housing needs.
Also, with decentralization, getting these market rental units up in the communities to have people who are moving into the communities through decentralization having an adequate home.
Like I said, I’m just giving more of some general comments. Over the course of this government, I’ve seen the improvements that this Housing Corp has made in the communities and small communities as well. I know we can’t fix it all in one term, but we’ve made a really big impact, from what I’ve seen, and commend the Minister and his staff as well as staff in the regions at the LHOs for doing such a great job. I look forward to the ongoing progress with the LHOs in communities.
That’s more of a comment, Madam Chair. I just wanted to get that on the record seeing that this is the last operational budget and the last opportunity to sit down and have a chat with the Minister and his Housing Corp. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I do have some comments. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. One of them comes from the Minister’s comments yesterday when he opened the department. I was struck on page 3 where he said that, “NWT Housing Corp activities are just part of the overall support as homelessness is addressed through the activities within a number of departments in the GNWT.” I thought that we had consolidated homelessness within the NWT Housing Corporation. That struck me as a little strange. I would appreciate an explanation of what that means.
Right after that, the Minister mentioned we have increased the funding for homelessness from $325,000 to $855,000. I am extremely pleased to see that. It certainly was a paltry amount at $325,000. It needs to go beyond the $855,000, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. I hope the emphasis on homelessness will continue. Along with that, the funding that has been provided for the City of Yellowknife for the Housing First program is an extremely positive step and I want to thank you on behalf of council and the residents of Yellowknife.
In looking at the numbers, it’s really good to see that rent revenue is being collected, that the percentage of rent revenue we are collecting has gone up. I think the corp has made changes to assist the LHOs in their rent collections and it’s obviously working, because rent revenues are far better than they were a couple of years ago. I would say keep the pressure on, it’s working and keep it up.
I want to express strong support for the move to bring the money from ECE into Housing to provide for housing for clients who are on income support, the long-term income support clients. I think it’s an excellent move. I think it’s going to make it easier for those clients to deal with their daily struggles with paperwork, applications and so on. It does help to a certain extent to alleviate the need for public housing stock in Yellowknife, but my other concern is there’s a huge need for public housing stock in Yellowknife. There’s a huge need pretty much across the Territories, so we’re not alone in Yellowknife in asking for this, but I would hope that the corporation, albeit you’re strapped for money, that you would be looking at public housing on a per capita basis and making things a bit more equitable from a Yellowknife perspective.
I wondered about the impact of investment in Affordable Housing money we’re getting from the federal government. It was recently announced. I’m presuming that maybe the Minister and the Housing Corp knew about this previously. Do we have money in the budget to match what the federal government is giving us? Are we going to be able to use this in the 2015-16 budget year? I certainly hope so.
Just something that came up during oral questions earlier, I thought the Minister said it’s $1.8 million per year coming to the NWT and then I thought I heard him say $3.6 million over five years is what we’re getting. So, $1.8 million times five doesn’t equal $3.6 million, so I’m a little confused here.
I have to speak again about the need for seniors housing in Yellowknife particularly. I think, I know that the Housing Corp is involved with the steering committee or whatever it’s called that’s dealing with the Avens project. I certainly hope that that project can get a green light to go forward, and I just encourage the Housing Corp to do everything they can to make sure that the Avens project goes ahead. It’s desperately needed.
There was a statement sometime within the last year about the Housing Corporation monitoring utilities in public housing. I guess I would like to know if that is still happening. Has there been a reduction in the cost of utilities for all of our public housing units across the territory? If so, because we’re monitoring, that’s great, but if we’re not doing any monitoring, is there an intent on the part of the Housing Corp to start monitoring utility usage in public housing units? I think that’s something we are going to have to do if we are ever going to experience any kind of efficiencies in the use of heat and power.
The Rent Supplement Program, I believe we’re almost on to two years now and the Minister said we’re going to do an evaluation after a two-year initial period. I would hope that that would happen fairly soon. I want to, again, suggest that the Rent Supplement Program should be applicable to those people who are renting a room in a house, not that they have their own unit, but they’re just renting a room in a house. There are many people that that’s all they can afford and some of them still need to get some kind of a rent supplement. Maybe not the full $500, maybe something less, but there are people who are struggling to make it when they are only renting a room.
Lastly, Madam Chair, the CMHC money is declining. We heard that from Mr. Dolynny today. The government has been putting money in, the Housing Corporation has been putting money into their programs over the years. As the CMHC money declines and the input from the GNWT increases, are we going to get to a point where we’re going to be able to cover the whole shortfall from the CMHC funding, or is that something that is not going to be attainable? I guess we could, but is it going to be an unmanageable amount? We are saving some money with the various changes the Housing Corporation has put in place. My guess is that the savings don’t equal the revenue that we’re losing through CMHC, but as we go forward we need to have a plan to deal with the lack of CMHC funding in another 20 years or so. Is it going to simply be an infusion of cash from the GNWT, or are we going to be able to generate savings that are going to be equal to the money we don’t get from the feds? I kind of doubt that.
With regard to Housing Ministers and the federal government, I know our Housing Minister has experienced frustration because there’s a lack of willingness on the part of the federal government to meet with the Housing Ministers, particularly to discuss the declining CMHC funding. I guess I would like to know from the Minister if there is any progress on that front. Are we getting any closer to being able to negotiate with the federal government to try to reinstate some CMHC funding for our housing stock? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. At this time, we have had three speakers with their general comments. I will ask for the Minister to respond to any questions or comments that he heard. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. In response to Mr. Yakeleya’s concerns, the core need is something we use to determine where some of our allocations are. If you look at the numbers in core need, that includes all households in the community, not just the public housing portfolio in the community. So we have some challenges there. One of the questions they ask people is, do you think your housing is adequate, and nine times out of 10 people will say no. Every one of us in here can think of something that we need done in our house, so I’m not sure if it’s a true indicator. I suppose the only way to get a true indication is to hire a building inspector and go unit to unit, then that would be an awfully costly venture. We use these numbers to help with some of our determinations.
On the Fort Good Hope issue, we are looking forward to having a contract awarded. I’m not sure if it has been awarded yet. We are looking forward to having construction started on that. When you talk about the materials in the communities, it’s a challenge we face with the low water levels. A lot of the M and I work we have planned for next year, we are trying to get the material in this year on the winter road so the work can begin right away.
As far as extra material goes, we have given that some consideration. We know it’s a challenge in remote communities. It’s something we are looking at. We just have to be sure that we don’t have people opening up charge accounts and come and charge a bunch of material and not pay for it. It is something that is on our radar and we’re looking at dealing with that.
We have a number of programs designed for seniors. You talked about the land tenure, Mr. Yakeleya. One of the things we think the community can help us with is the land tenure. It’s a lot easier on their applications when they do have land tenure and it was one of the requirements we had. The only program where we don’t require land tenure is in our SAFE program, the Emergency Repair Program because it’s an emergency, so we’re not going to be too concerned about that at that time. A lot of the programs are going to our co-pay and we actually have people who have their water pump replaced, for example. They’ve come up with $200 as part of the co-pay. We find that that’s working well. We’re looking at expanding on that.
Mr. Moses’ comments we appreciate on the relationship we’ve had with committee. We try to seek committee’s input and advice on some of the initiatives we have. We find with that political support, it’s a lot easier to move some of our initiatives forward instead of just coming to you and saying this is what we’re doing, end of story. We found that it has really been helpful in advancing some of our initiatives because, after all, they are 17th Legislative Assembly initiatives.
The 100 units that we’re doing over three years, I think we’re in year two and there are 36 being done this year. We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had an investment of $21 million from the 17th Legislative Assembly to help deal with this. That program is being rolled out.
Again, we appreciate the comments commending the work the folks on the front line are doing. It’s going a long way to advancing some of our initiatives.
Ms. Bisaro’s comments, we are pleased to hear the Member is pleased with the additional investment in homelessness. I will have Mr. Stewart speak to that later as well as the cross-departmental work we’re doing.
The $150,000, we think, is going to be a worthwhile initiative once we get all the information from the report and how they can best implement some of the recommendations.
Rent revenue has gone up. Again, as I mentioned to Mr. Dolynny in our exchange before, a shout out has to go to our LHOs and the clients for honouring the commitments that they’ve made and they are actually paying the rent. As I said before, it helps us in our ability to look after the units and look after some of the declining CMHC funding.
The move to move money from ECE to Housing, again, I’ll get Mr. Stewart touch on that later.
Public housing stock in Yellowknife is a concern that the Member has raised the last number of years. We hear it. One of the ways we tried to deal with that is through the territorial rent supplement and we’re fortunate that in the capital we have a number of organizations in the community that take a lot of these initiatives on their own. We contribute to some of the initiatives they’ve taken on to provide additional housing spaces for folks in Yellowknife, through the Betty House, for example. I think Rockhill Apartments is one we make contributions to. It makes it a lot easier when you have an organization to work with, and I touched on it before in my exchange with Mr. Menicoche from Nahendeh. We have this pilot program we have been wanting to bring out into the communities. We’ve had two communities who have taken us up on it. We are still engaging with two more. It’s an opportunity for organizations in the community where for $100,000 we will renovate an existing unit and then we will pay them $70,000 a year for five years. That can create a couple of positions within that community. It’s going to be exactly what we wanted to do. It’s going to be a place for people to go stay or sleep that don’t have a roof over their heads. You know, we can have communities step up, like a lot of organizations do in the capital, then make it a lot easier to roll that initiative out.
Monitoring utilities, I’ll have Mr. Stewart touch on that.
The CMHC declining funding, I’m going to just clarify some of the numbers here, Ms. Bisaro. The $1.8 million per year is money that we are getting from the federal government and we’re matching it, $1.8 million each year, so that gives us $3.6 million a year times five years, that’s where we got the $18 million investment from. I apologize if I didn’t make it clear in my communication. So that’s the $18 million.
I would like to point out that we’re one of the only jurisdictions in the country that matches the money we get from Canada. We had the Northern Housing Trust a few years ago. I think it was a $58 million investment from Canada. The Northwest Territories government matched that $58 million, so we had $116 million that we put towards units on the ground, so that was a worthwhile investment. We’ve converted a number of those units to public housing because they originally went down as HELP units and we’ve converted them to public housing because we didn’t have the clientele we thought we were going to get, so they’ve served their purpose.
The declining CMHC funding is one that’s on our radar. I recently had a meeting with the new federal Minister of Housing and the new president of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and I did relay our concern on to them that we are concerned with the declining CMHC funding. Member Bisaro is absolutely correct; the money would just get harder to sustain as our money comes in from CMHC. As that number goes down, it’s going to be harder and harder for this government to sustain. I think this year we got $23 million, I’ve seen the figures somewhere. We got $22 million from CMHC and that number is going to go down. We’re fortunate this year it didn’t go down too much, but through the life of the 17th Assembly I think it’s gone down $2.1 million. The 18th Assembly it will go down an additional $1.3 million during the life of that Assembly. So we’re taking steps to try to deal with that but it is on the radar.
A lot of the larger jurisdictions down south are starting to feel it now. We felt it right away because we depend a lot on that money. They’re starting to feel it now, so the pressure is starting to ramp up on the federal government. So we continue to have those discussions with them. I was very encouraged that CMHC has a new president and there is a new Minister of Housing and I made them aware of some of the issues that we’re facing, so we’re hoping to have those ongoing discussions.
I’m going to turn it over now, Madam Chair, to Mr. Stewart. He’s going to touch on a couple of the other issues that Ms. Bisaro had raised. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Stewart.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on the comment around other departments and their role in homelessness. As the Member is well aware, homelessness is a complicated issue where there are lots of facets to it, but other departments do continue, even though there was some consolidation, to play an important role. For example, there are a number of emergency shelters that receive funding through ECE as part of the per diem that they get for income support-type payments. There are family violence shelters that are funded through other departments that are important parts of that. The Day Shelter in Yellowknife, of course, is funded by Health and Social Services and they provide funding, as well, for the SideDoor youth centre. Transitional housing, there’s a grant-in-kind through Public Works for Rockhill Apartments, so there’s a variety of sources for addressing homelessness and I think I would be remiss if I also didn’t note that when you’re dealing with homelessness that all of those other services… I have been known to say that Housing First is important but it can’t be only housing, and so there are all those other services that are just as important to deal with homelessness as well.
On the second issue around utilities, we are monitoring that very carefully. We’re getting some very good data coming out of that. For something like fuel oil, you can imagine that we probably need to get a full annual cycle of data, because there are delivery times and you’ve got to be a little careful that it doesn’t look like there’s more consumption just because somebody delivers more frequently than others, and it’s similar with water but we’ve now been at it since April so we’re starting to take a look at that. Electricity, we’ve been watching very carefully. I, just a couple of days ago, took a look at that and we’ve processed, just out of interest, almost 30,000 electricity bills over the last several months, obviously since we started, and you are starting to see some interesting patterns. Only about 2.5 percent of the bills have more than 900 kilowatt hours of usage, so we’re starting to be able to identify units that are maybe using a little more, and in the next several months we’re going to be developing reports so that anybody that’s a real outlier on any of the utility ones, the LHOs can start to address to see if there are behaviours or other reasons why those units may be higher on the consumption scale. So some very, very interesting data there. I think it will also be very interesting to look at that and understand the impacts of some of our retrofits and those sorts of things as well. So I think there will be more good stuff coming out of that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Stewart. General comments. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to welcome the Minister and the Housing Corporation executives here today. The hard part about going near the end of general comments is that a lot of the good things have been said by members on the committee and also responded to by the Minister. But I would like to mention a few things in my opening comments that I think may have not been addressed, or at least echo some of the comments, and I’ve already heard some of the responses so I don’t expect the Minister to reply accordingly.
As mentioned by Member Moses, faced with a very scathing Auditor General of Canada report it’s only befitting that we find ourselves on the tail end of a lot of good work from the department. This committee has faced, and as a Member I know I’ve sometimes faced, questioning departments with a real can’t-do attitude. It’s a pleasure to work with the Ministers; it’s a pleasure to work with authorities here as well as the corporation where it’s been a can-do attitude after a scathing report. So, congratulations for literally, I believe, within a short period of time, in my opinion, you’ve turned a lot of negatives into positives and that’s not an easy task. That’s a monumental task. It’s not the work of one individual. It was definitely a team effort. I know you’re flanked, Mr. Minister, with some pretty good people on your right and your left, but I think kudos go to your entire department.
So, first and foremost, it’s worth noting that if you look at the main estimates here for Housing, there’s only a 1 percent increase from the main estimates, which I’m pleased to say is in line with our revenues. So, congratulations for actually living up to the rigours of the statement of the Finance Minister.
That said, if I started to look at your opening address, the areas that I think are worth mentioning, and I think there are some good things happening, and as I mentioned earlier, homelessness. I know Member Menicoche talked earlier today in the House about it. But I think when you look at the steps – and they’re not just gradual steps, these are monumental steps in homelessness over the past three or four years – it’s been almost a threefold investment and that’s very impressive. Could we do more? Absolutely we could do more. But the fact that we’re seeing those increases over that period of time in addressing homelessness, as you said from $325,000 at the start of the 17th Assembly to now $855,000 in this budget, I commend you and I commend your ability to leverage those monies out of our bigger budget.
As mentioned here, Ms. Bisaro mentioned and again Member Menicoche, on behalf of Yellowknife we do appreciate the Housing First approach. I know it’s not a lot of money, it’s $150,000, but it’s still $150,000. It’s still the intent and I believe that this coordinated approach will have a spilling factor into the communities and I’m hoping we can work with our colleagues to make sure that is a successful endeavour.
That being said, I’m still a bit concerned that this Housing Corporation is still faced with two very large operating pressures. As I mentioned earlier in my statements and also covered by Ms. Bisaro and others, that declining CMHC funding, there’s a time when the pavement is going to hit the road, the rubber is going to hit the road. What I mean by that is that right now, as it was indicated, you’re feeling it now, but we’re really going to feel it when those numbers are really not going to be strong enough to do what we need to do and I don’t know when we’re going to hit that threshold. Like I said, we only have 23 years left of funding and that number is decreasing gradually, so even every year we’re getting less and less money, which is almost like a double negative. I think that is by far one of the largest operational pressures to which today, as a Member, I’m still a little bit perplexed by how we’re going to do it. I can’t quantify, I can’t visualize how this department is going to mitigate that over the next couple of years.
Of course, there are graphs that show where the money is. But as we are all well aware, I look at our revenue streams over the next couple of years, the predictability models and the fact that we’re having pressure on our resource revenues. Unless something cataclysmic occurs in terms of revenue stream, we’re going to be hitting a wall and I’m concerned about that.
The second key operating pressure that I think is going to be facing us, and is facing us currently and as I said in my statement today, is our aging stock of inventory. With 50 percent of our houses over 30 years old, it’s only a matter of time where those houses are going to be beyond repair. Those houses are going to be beyond any preventative maintenance program, which means that we’re going to be looking at new inventory, and we know the cost of new inventory and the disposal of old.
Again, I know it has been discussed here but I still think those two key operating pressures are still a little bit murky in terms of how we’re going to deal with that moving forward.
That said, again as I indicated, we carry about 400 mortgages. I know that the collection rate, as we talked about earlier today in our exchange, was about 30 percent back in 2012 and that arrears are around $16 million. We heard today that those arrears are $9.1 million. If I’m wrong, please correct me. I think that is an important milestone. That’s huge in terms of getting those monies back, and I do commend the government for doing so. I will have questions regarding the 115 clients that have not yet met that obligation, and we’ll deal with that in detail shortly.
The issue of the 2007 rental units that are managed by our local housing authorities, again we have seen great strides in rent collection. This is part of that can-do attitude. We know that a number of LHOs were faced with really poor collection rates when we first started our jobs here not that many years ago. When you look at it today, from a 71 percent collection rate to now a 97 collection rate, those are huge numbers. As we indicated earlier in our oral exchange, still we have those who are still under 70 percent collection. I will have questions a little more specifically when we get to that number.
The other thing, as I indicated, was seeing the overall aspect of the Housing Corporation in terms of a lot of their housing preventative maintenance or preventative care models, and there are lots of options out there for our residents. I don’t understand the rationale behind doing that, because if we were to invest into prevention and good maintenance of our units, it will definitely decrease those major repairs. So you’re spending 10 cents to hopefully save a dollar. I get it. However, as we get into details and one of your plans, actually your CARE model, it’s interesting that we’re seeing a reduction. So if this is indeed a philosophy of the corporation in terms of wanting to invest into preventative maintenance, when we get to that operating line or that activity I will be asking why are we going in the other direction, because it goes against the philosophy that I believe we’ve been given as a committee and I just want to get clarification.
That being said, with the amount of potential opportunity in this corporation, I don’t want to lose the shining star that I think we have before us here today. We have to give it the due consideration of the House, and I believe what you’ve heard today from many Members, we have done so. Are there opportunities? Yes, there are always opportunities within a department, within especially a housing corporation. But bar none, this has been a department that clearly rose to the occasion, has taken on this challenge right on the chin, and I’m sure had to mitigate and swim through shark-infested waters to get it to where they are today and live up to the mantra of their terms of reference for the people they serve. So for that I’d just like to say congratulations and I’m looking forward to more details. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. We’ll go on to two other Members before we turn the floor over to Minister McLeod to respond. Next on the list I have Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple comments in the general comments area. The first one is I’d like to know what the Housing Corporation is doing to combat, obviously, all the pressure we have with seniors, the aging population we have in the Northwest Territories and how many units we’re expecting to build for seniors, how much we’re expecting the seniors to stay in their own homes, maybe seniors programs to assist in that area. I guess I’d like to get a little update on what we’re doing.
We know some of the pressures that are coming over the next five or 10 years with the aging population of the Northwest Territories and what we’re doing to assist in that pressure.
The other area, and I’ve talked to the department about it a little bit, is the centralization purchasing or the use of shared procurement. We’ve had some concerns from local providers of goods and products and services and the fact that we’re using shared services. I guess I’ve been hearing that there have been some difficulties in that process. There’s a little bit of a disconnect between the LHO and the supplier of the products and when the products are coming in.
The other area of concern is if BIP is being extended to the LHO, where LHOs are able to go south without having to use BIP. I’ve even heard stories of some LHOs getting together and hiring a southern purchaser to buy stuff directly from the South and not following BIP. My understanding of BIP is if you’re funded by the government and you’re over 50 percent, you should be following BIP as well.
Those are a couple of the main areas that have come up more recently. I’d like to see what the Minister and department have to say about them. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Next I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here on housing and the Housing Corporation proposals. I’d like to recognize, first of all, the 2014 NWT Community Survey. These five-year surveys are a huge tool, sort of an evaluation tool, a monitoring tool and I know have played an important role in pointing the Housing Corp towards problem areas. I think the data reflects a job well done in many of our small communities, most of which have shown some significant improvement. That has not been done without big challenges, and I recognize the effort that has been put in to make that achievement.
I also want to recognize right off the bat the response to my and other’s calls for actions in Members’ statements and so on, highlighting the issues of ECE income assistance clients for housing and the need to get the Housing Corp involved in that. They’re the professionals with housing. You know, we’ve been running into so many… I spend way too much and I know others do, too, on constituent issues related to that. So kudos, first of all, and strong encouragement to expand that. I also have clients asking how they can try and get on that list of transferring from ECE income assistance to the Housing Corp. I’d appreciate some information now or outside of the House on how I can advise them to take advantage of that opportunity.
Just looking at utilities, I’m not seeing the savings there yet that I would hope to. I understand the monitoring is starting to produce some opportunities. I’m very excited about the 232 major retrofits. I know there’s always an energy focus in those and I know you’ve done a lot. I think this brings us up to 700. So I would expect to see some savings there now, especially of course with the reductions in heating fuel costs and I’m not seeing that. Were these projections made before the price dropped? Anyway, I did catch Mr. Stewart’s comments and I appreciated that, but I’ll be looking for further information as we go and as time goes by over the next few months.
This is sort of a sweet and sour exercise here. Getting into the sour, 60 percent of the housing issues on affordability are right here in Yellowknife, right under your noses. Whereas we’ve done well in the small communities and the Minister’s introductory comments is all about small communities until we got to a little few bucks for Yellowknife homelessness, which is an initiative of the City of Yellowknife. There’s nothing in the Minister’s remarks on this major issue, which I spend a lot of my time on and I know people are in real difficulties out there and I don’t see it addressed or recognized. So that’s one thing I’d like to mention. Over 1,000 families is what we’re talking about here in Yellowknife. Greater than 20 percent, and if you throw in other issues, then obviously 25 percent of all housing issues in the NWT increased over the five years by 45 percent. We are 45 percent worse today in Yellowknife than five years ago, over 1,000 families. Again, not mentioned.
I’m happy to see the increase in contributions to the homelessness issue and partnering with the City of Yellowknife. I think partnering is always important and working with communities. I was fortunate to be in the Yukon where there was a lot of presentations given on Housing First, and I know the Minister’s staff were there too and enjoyed some good discussions there, although I don’t see the department going for it. It’s being left to Yellowknife, for example. But when you look at where these problems arise, I know the Minister is aware of where our homelessness issues arise, it’s from other communities. So we really need a Housing First program in other communities where these people are coming from. They’re coming to Yellowknife because there are services here or there are more opportunities to make it without services. So you can’t blame them, but really I think it would be much healthier to try and capture the issue with a Housing First approach on a very modest basis. We’re not talking about hundreds here and working with communities to capture that opportunity.
I’m still not seeing much, I know there has probably been some thinking on this, but much action on the way of a system to award Housing clients who show good behaviour in terms of reducing energy consumption and other evidence of efforts to keep costs low. I think that in many cases these are able-bodied people and able people who are unemployed. Often they’re long-term and it seems to me still that this is an opportunity to look into. With smart metres, is that an opportunity, with some work to educate our public? You know, going to biomass heating. There may be some insurance issues there, but I’m not convinced we can’t overcome some of those maybe with pellet boilers or whatever or pellet stoves. I’ll leave that one.
I’m still getting major constituent issues with Housing not always related to things I’ve spoken of already and some of which have only been resolved by going to the courts or the rental officer and making presentations and getting them to turn around the Housing Corp’s direction. That’s unfortunate. It takes a lot of energy, very hard on people. As far as I can tell, it’s mostly to do with communications. A little bit of the issue we’ve had with income support treatment of clients in the past. I don’t know whether it’s an unfortunate culture or what it is, but I think there are some opportunities for some tune-ups there and I am happy to visit with the Minister about those.
Finally, I know there are lots of others, Housing is so important to our programs, but the seniors and assisted living side of things, again I’m seeing a lot of things happening in small communities, which I’m very glad to see quite a list of them here. But I’m not seeing the same attention paid to Yellowknife, although it’s clear from the statistics that we have a much more rapidly accelerating issue than anywhere else in the Northwest Territories.
So in terms of catching up on the rent debt and so on, debt payments, I think the Minister is well aware of where the issue was on that front. It was moving to ECE and finally getting it back into Housing, which the Minister was instrumental in doing. So I appreciate the improved performance, but I would expect nothing less with the return to common sense on how to collect those rents and so on.
So thank you, Mr. Chair. A bit of a sweet and sour, but I think there are opportunities to do better, as good as many of the efforts have been by the Housing Corporation. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. With that, we’ll turn it over to the Minister for replies. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We appreciate the comment’s that the Member made and it’s correct, it is a team effort, not only with the folks delivering the program but I think it’s also the Members of the Legislative Assembly because, as I said before, without a lot of the support that they give us, it makes it harder for us to move some of our initiatives forward. So I think we can all take credit for that.
The decline in CMHC funding, I mean, that’s an issue that we’re going to have to deal with and we’ll have to continue to bring that forward.
The aging stock, again, that’s another one we have to deal with. We do have a mid-life retrofit that goes into a lot of these units. We expect, I think, about 50 years out of them. So we do a mid-life retrofit and we’ve done a lot of those. Our plan is to replace 40 of these units a year with newer stock, and again, that will have a trickle-down effect because they’ll be a lot more energy efficient and everything else will go down.
Dealing with the arrears, and one of the things we’ve done that I think alleviates a lot of the pressure on the local housing authorities, is we’ve taken a lot of those arrears to headquarters in Yellowknife and we have started to deal with and hear. One of the problems we’ve faced in a lot of the smaller communities especially, not so much the bigger communities, but the smaller communities, is the people that work in the LHO know pretty much everybody in town and it was difficult for them, I think, in many cases, to try and do evictions or do some collection of those. So we thought by bringing it here to the capital, and I think we’ve seen a good indicator of that improvement because we do the garnishees, we do the evictions out of headquarters and I think that’s going a long way to having people step up and start dealing with many of the issues, and we’ve taken a lot of pressure off of the LHOs. At the end of the day, I think that’s a good thing.
Mr. Bouchard’s comments, we’re doing five seniors units right now. I’m not sure what the long-term plan is. I would have to find that, but we’re hoping that’s a start in dealing with much of the aging population that we know is coming. So we’ll continue to work on that. We do offer, I just announced, I think in my comments, about the care mobility where we will work with a lot of the seniors or people that have mobility issues in taking care of that so they can actually stay in their houses or stay in their units much longer. Like through the Preventative Maintenance Program, and I think there’s a number of other programs that are offered through the Government of the Northwest Territories to assist seniors in staying in their own homes. I mean, I can think of the fuel subsidy and there are a few others, but we try to do what we can to have them stay in their own units for as long as possible. That will take some of the pressure off them moving into public housing or into a seniors facility. But we do recognize that it is an issue that’s forthcoming, so doing the five seniors unit is a start and we’ll continue to… I’m going to have Mr. Stewart a little later touch on the centralizing, leasing and purchasing and that. I’ll have Mr. Stewart touch on that a bit.
Mr. Bromley’s comments, I’ll take the sweet. I won’t respond to this, however. No. Member Bromley is correct; the survey tool is an important instrument in how we determine some of our allocations. I think I said that on a number of occasions. You see there is an improvement in numbers. We’ve spent a lot of money in the last eight years in trying to improve our housing stock; $182 million was spent in a lot of the smaller communities; $72 million was spent in some of the regional centres and I think about $29 million was spent in capital. There has been a major increase in the money that we spend. We try to distribute it around in the smaller communities when you have 65 percent of the homes in the community are housing stock, and that’s what you see. If you look in some of the market communities, Yellowknife for example, that number is not as high. I’m not sure what the exact percentage is. So, some of the options that they have are options that they don’t have in the smaller communities.
The Territorial Rent Supplement Program is one way we try to deal with that. It was designed more for the market communities so we can get more people into units.
Our numbers for that are down. We think a lot of people actually have used it for the two years and it’s allowed them to get a foot up. Then they were able to save some money and move into homeownership. So we find that those numbers are down, but we will continue to take applications for that.
Mr. Bromley talked about partnering, and that’s one of the advantages that I think we have here in the capital is that we are able to partner with a number of organizations. We’ll make contributions to them. So that the ability to partner with community groups, I think, is more evident here in the capital than it is in a lot of the smaller communities where the LHOs are about the only partner we have there, and I’ve said it before. I think we see that in the Northern Pathways to Housing Program we’re trying to deliver, where we have four pilots that we’re hoping to do this here. I mentioned the figures that we have $100,000 that we would use to renovate an existing unit in the community, $70,000 a year over five years to partner with an organization in the community to watch over this unit for us, provide services, or just be there.
We have two communities that have proposals in; we’re still waiting to engage with a couple more. We think that might deal with some of the issues in some of the smaller communities. Unfortunately, they still will gravitate towards the larger communities because there just is a lot more there for them. But if we can keep them in communities… These are designed for people who don’t have homes that need maybe a place to sleep for the night and just to have a roof over their head instead of just wandering around. We’re hoping that will alleviate some of the pressure.
As I said before, it’s a pilot project. If we find that it’s working, then we’ll do the evaluation. If we find it’s working well, then we’ll expand the program. Hopefully that will take some of the pressure off a lot of people coming to the larger… It is one that is definitely on the radar and it’s one that we feel that we have to deal with.
The…(inaudible)…for utilities. Again, Mr. Stewart is going to touch on the utilities. Just very briefly I can say it’s something that these numbers that we have I think are from the spring. These numbers are from the spring, so we haven’t been able to do the calculations with all the drop in prices. With the new system, we’re monitoring all of the utilities for the communities now. I think that came into effect April 1st of last year. So we’re able to gather some baseline data now and we’ll be able to share that with the Members.
A lot of the improvements that we’ve made over the years I believe are geared more towards energy efficiency because, obviously, if your house is energy efficient or the unit is energy efficient, then there will be some savings in the long run. I think in a couple of communities, we’ve gone to a central biomass heating operation and we’re looking to realize some of the savings in that. I think it was just on the news last year that we were doing the panels and the home in Hay River. Again, we’re looking to see some of the savings out of that.
We’ve been monitoring the unit up in Inuvik for the last couple of years and it’s on line. We’re looking to see with all… It was a bit of a research project, so we want to see what the outcome is of that. I know it was very expensive to build. I think we put $500,000 into that unit and I believe CMHC gave us $500,000. It was very expensive, but we want to see if there is some… It was a research project, so you pay for those to help you develop some options going forward.
Seniors in assisted living, we do contribute again to some of the organizations here in town that maintain some... I don’t have the exact numbers; Mr. Stewart may have those. He may want to touch on that, or we can get into it as we get into detail.
I think I’ve touched on the issues that the last few Members have raised. If I missed any, my apologies.
Mr. Bromley’s comment about the income assistance, we can have that conversation outside of here and we’ll be able to fill you in on some of the work that we’re doing going forward. We’ll have that conversation.
I’m going to ask Mr. Stewart if he can touch on Mr. Bouchard’s comments on the centralization and the purchasing and the other contributions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Stewart.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just quickly, as the Member is aware, we went to a bulk procurement process for our LHOs, and part of the reason for that was to some of the issues that you raised, was to make sure that there was a consistent approach to being used to inventory control and that there was some thinking behind what they bought and where we get it.
For last year’s bulk procurement, 100 percent of the tenders in there, the contracts went to northern companies. Eighty percent were local and the other 20 percent went to companies in other regions, when we did it by region by region.
Certainly, if there are examples in terms of the issue around BIP, you’re absolutely right that the LHOs should be following the Business Incentive Policy. If we know of examples where that isn’t taking place, we would certainly want to know those so that we can make sure that they understand their requirements to follow the Business Incentive Policy.
Just quickly on some of the contributions here in various spots but certainly in Yellowknife just in response to Mr. Bromley’s comments. There are a number of other organizations. While we provide, obviously, about 300 or 290 public housing units, there are a number of other organizations that we provide extensive support for. For example, Avens, we provide about $540,000 a year for them to operate their units. North Slave Housing here in the capital that runs about 75 units, we provide $1 million a year for their supports. Then there are a number of other smaller organizations and smaller facilities that we also provide some support, including the YWCA to support the Rockhill operations. There are some of these in other communities I should mention, to be fair. Teepee Housing in Inuvik, for example, basically runs social housing but we provide about $320,000 to them. We do operate, obviously, a large number of units, but we also support a number of other groups that provide lower income folks with some housing supports as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Committee, general comments.
