Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement with questions for the Minister of the Housing Corporation. I certainly did express support for the transfer from ECE to the Housing Corporation for some of our income assistance clients. Hopefully, we will soon see a reduction in the barriers to affordable shelter for some of our most vulnerable people.
When will we see the protocols in place for the new Housing Corporation takeover of the ECE clients and when will people be able to access these new supports? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are just in the process of working with ECE to identify possible income support clients that we could transfer over to this program. We find that this program is going to be a good step going forward because, in the past, income support clients have had difficulty accessing private rentals. We feel with the NWT Housing Corporation having the lease, or sub-lease, then we would be able to make it a little easier for these clients to access housing. As soon as we come up with a progress report, or as we are moving along, we will be sure to update committee on the work that we are doing as we go forward. Thank you.
I didn’t hear an answer when this will be in place. I hope it will be in place April 1st.
Seventy-five new public housing spaces NWT-wide, 50 new places in Yellowknife is a good start, but it’s not nearly enough to make a dent in the pent-up demand. Affordable housing is one of the most pressing social issues that this government faces in market communities.
What are this government’s plans to expand this program to further address the crushing need for affordable housing for income support clients? Mahsi.
Working with income support clients and trying to get people into units is obviously our top priority. In response to the Member’s question before, and I apologize for not giving a timeline, it’s actually effective April 1st that we will be leasing or subleasing private rental units. There is an expression for interest out there right now. We’re trying to deal with the affordability issue, especially in some of the market communities, through the Transitional Rent Supplement Program and other programs that we are trying to introduce. We are seeing this as a first step in trying to help address that. It is obviously a challenge and we will have to continue to deal with it as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Minister. I hope he is going to work with committee on this. One thousand fifty-five Yellowknife families have housing affordability issues, up 45 percent. Yet $900,000 in rent supplement budgeted to help people exactly like this remained unspent last year.
So, what is the Minister doing to ensure that the money budgeted for housing assistance this year, through the Rent Supplement Program, for example, makes it to the people who need it in the market communities like Yellowknife? Mahsi.
I think that’s a point that needs to be clarified. I did see it in the media that $900,000 was unused, which was in my response to Member Bisaro the other day.
We had $1 million originally budgeted for this program. We have reduced that to about $900,000. We were doing some math the other day and it comes to about $75,000 a month that we are trying to assist transitional rent supplement clients and that works out to $900,000 per year. Our uptake right now is not where we want it to be and we need to make people more aware that the program is out there. We have had some ads in the paper. We have helped 158 people who have gone through the program. Some have moved out for different reasons. We need to get the information out there and we will continue to do what we can, as the Housing Corporation, to ensure that residents are aware of these programs and how it might benefit them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. With the crushing need out there, the Minister needs to do something beyond just the normal communications efforts, I would say, to get this happening.
As I mentioned, 60 percent of the housing affordability issues are in Yellowknife for the whole territory and the problem is worsening considerably.
What other action does the Minister intend to take to lessen the burden of finding affordable housing in Yellowknife and the NWT? What evaluations are planned to ensure another five years of failure are prevented? Mahsi.
I shudder to think where this territory would be without the investment from the NWT Housing Corporation. To say five years of failure I think, Mr. Speaker, is an unfair statement. If you look at the money the corporation has spent housing people, they have helped many people. We know there is an affordability issue in some of the market communities and that is a result of the market, and we take steps to deal with that. We continue to invest money, such as the territorial Rent Supplement Program or Public Housing Program. We have other initiatives that we are working on right now to try and help address some of the housing crunch in some of the larger communities. We will continue to plug along.
We have made a huge investment in housing in the Northwest Territories along with the Legislative Assembly and we will continue to go forward and do what we can to ensure all residents of the Northwest Territories are adequately housed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
