Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in the day I spoke about the need to get more public housing units in Fort Simpson as well as begin a plan about doing a homelessness complex. I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation – I know that we do have a Homelessness Strategy – what kind of supports are there in the Homelessness Strategy that can help with projects such as this. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; we do have a Homelessness Strategy. One of the parts of the strategy is the Northern Pathways to Housing, and it’s a pilot project that we’ve been trying to implement in the communities. I think we have four communities that were identified. We have two communities, Aklavik and Behchoko, that actually have their proposal put together, and we have Fort Simpson and Fort Good Hope that we’re continuing to engage with, hoping they take us up on our offer.
It’s up to $100,000 to renovate an existing unit and there is ongoing funding of $70,000 over five years. That would go a long way in trying to help address some of the issues facing these smaller communities, and also it would be an opportunity there for some employment in a small community, because we do want to work with a community organization to deliver this program on our behalf. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That’s certainly something that we can move towards. I was talking to my colleague Mr. Yakeleya, and the Housing Needs Survey of 2014 indicates the Nahendeh region, of course, is number one again in core needs. We had addressed that the last survey but it’s creeping back up again, and some of the issues are new and emerging young people and families. So I appreciate that answer about homelessness.
Can that program also work in conjunction with our Anti-Poverty Strategy and accessing more funds to make units available for the homeless in the regional centres like Fort Simpson? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it is our hope to try and address the homelessness. It used to be that it was more of a regional issue, but I think we’re finding more and more that it’s continuing to branch out into a lot of the smaller communities and that’s one of the reasons that we’ve come up with this program to try and assist with that.
There are opportunities there to tie into the Anti-Poverty Strategy and all the different pieces of work we’ve got going out there. We have identified some money through our corporation to help deal with this and we’ll continue to do so. I think we have about four or five programs that are specific to design to help deal with homelessness activities across the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that answer. In addressing the homelessness, I think part of the issue in Fort Simpson, as well, is the lack of public housing. I indicated in my list, particularly for single people there’s a list that’s almost 30 people long. In fact, a couple of the applicants have been on that list for about seven years.
So I would just like to know, how are we addressing increasing public units in the community of Fort Simpson, especially in light of there being a private developer that has 12 to 14 units and I think they may be shut down within the next year or two, as well, and that will certainly increase the need for more units for Fort Simpson. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, first of all, the person who has been waiting for seven years, I would have to look into that. As I was saying the other day, there are many reasons people are on a waiting list, but one of the requirements of receiving support from income support is to be on the waiting list – they could be on the waiting list even with support from income support – but also paying off their arrears. I’ve seen a number of cases where they’ve been on the waiting list for a long time and taking care of their arrears and they were, in fact, allocated housing units once their arrears were paid off. I commend them for that. There are a couple of cases where they’ve been on a repayment plan for a number of years, but they’ve seen that through and are now in public housing.
As far as increasing the public housing stock in the Member’s community, we do use the Community Needs Survey that we just completed in 2014, to help identify some of the communities and the most in need. Again, the Member pointed out that his region was number one, so we use that in helping to allocate units to a particular community.
I mean, we’re challenged with some of the funding decline, but we’re taking steps to try and deal with that issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In using the housing needs assessment, if in this case of the assessment being done in 2013-2014, I wonder if I can ask the Minister if he can check with his officials if they’re aware of this private housing provider about his units, 12 to 14 units being shut down and how that would affect the current needs assessment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I’ll be glad to have a conversation with the officials and ask them about the units being shut down in Fort Simpson and how that’s going to affect our numbers there. I will gather that information and I will have conversations with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
