Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just following up on my Member’s statement on homelessness in the NWT communities, my questions are for the Minister of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Shelter is a critical need in the hierarchy of needs of people for them to lead productive lives. At the community level we are confronted with some realities. One of them, of course, is homelessness, and in some communities there are program initiatives to provide lunch and trying to help out people as best as we can.
So the question I have is: Is there any funding under the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation homelessness support program provided to any communities in the Deh Cho to combat homelessness in 2014-15? What about for the 2015-16? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have to confirm if there were any applications received from the Member’s constituency and I will do that and I will share those with the Member. Just offhand I do know that we have helped, we have given money to a lot of those that have applied from across the Northwest Territories. As for the specific breakdown, I don’t have those with me right now, but I will get those and share them with the Member. Thank you.
Recently the community of Fort Providence, the leader had recognized that there needs to be something done with homelessness. So he had proposed to the Minister’s office, the department, of seeking assistance in terms of purchasing woodstoves and, at the same time, lumber to establish tent frames and I wanted to see if the Minister could explain to the community why that proposal was rejected. Mahsi.
Thank you. When you talk about homelessness in the community, we have 2,400 public housing units across the Northwest Territories. All we ask people to do is honour the commitment that they’ve made to pay their rent and they won’t be evicted. In some cases we do have people who are evicted and they’re looking for other opportunities to try and house themselves.
As far as the Member’s specific, I don’t recall seeing a request for lumber. I do know that I replied to a letter from the chief of Fort Providence. As far as a request for the lumber goes, I’m not sure if it came from his original correspondence to us, but again, I will follow up on that and see if there was a specific request for lumber and, again, through many of the programs we offered, I’m not sure if there are opportunities there for lumber to be supplied to the community. Thank you.
One of the dilemmas that we have is that when it comes to providing housing to homeless people, usually a person that’s a bachelor that doesn’t have any children is perhaps 60 years old. Another person who likely has children equally gets the priority and in some instances in communities we have people that are basically fending for themselves and couch surfing.
How can the department assist those people in finding housing or shelter, especially those who are falling between the cracks and sometimes are basically left homeless? Mahsi.
Again, we operate a number of public housing units across the Northwest Territories. People get evicted for different reasons and they have to work out an agreement to repay their arrears, if there are any, to get back into public housing, and if they honour that then they would get on the waiting list and possibly back into public housing. However, in some cases where there are folks out in the Territories who don’t meet those commitments that they’ve made, we do have a pilot project that we’re starting, called Northern Pathways to Housing, and it’s four communities we’re piloting the project in right now. We will provide a unit in that particular community or smaller communities across the Northwest Territories. We will work with a local group, local government, local group to watch over the unit for us and we’ll enter into an agreement with them. We’re early in it. Right now we do have four communities that are getting this program off the ground. Depending on the success of this program, there’s a possibility that it could be expanded to include more communities in the Northwest Territories because we are hearing that in many of the communities, those that have been evicted from public housing are having a difficult time finding places to sleep. So this is one of the ways that we are going to try and address that challenge. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Time for oral questions has expired. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 7, oral questions, so I can have an oral question. Thank you.
---Unanimous consent denied
