Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, follow-up to my Member's statement, I have a few questions for the Minister of Housing. I'd like to ask the Minister, can the Minister offer any early observations from the survey data? For instance, how many people responded and how would that range across target groups? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of late last week, we had 1,017 surveys received, which is quite a significant number; however, early in the week we had realized that, when I asked for a breakdown of all of the communities and the amounts of surveys, I realized that some communities still hadn’t received a significant number of surveys. We had agreed, and this will be the first time I'm announcing it, that we actually will be extending the survey for one more month because it is more important to try to get the idea, the solutions, from community people than it is for me to meet a deadline of January 27, so we will be extending it for one month. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I mentioned in my statement, many of the people in the communities don’t know where to access this information for the survey. So while the survey is running, how and where could people access this information?
We felt that we did a comprehensive advertising of getting the survey out. We had put it in newspapers, we had put radio advertisements out, we had talked to the local housing organizations and the government service officers, but evidently we still had some work to do. So with the announcing of bringing the survey for one more month, we will be doing more of a strategic radio campaign that we promote it two/three times a week at least. We're going to be looking for times that we know that community people are listening to the radios. We will be promoting it again trying to push our local housing organizations and our government service officers within the communities that were low in numbers that they actually provide more of an outreach support to getting the surveys.
That's a great idea. I think it's very important, especially in Fort McPherson, Tsiigehtchic, and Aklavik, where the numbers are very low, the numbers that I've seen. You know, we have local radio stations here in the community. You know, I highly recommend the LHOs to go on the air and promote the survey. Also, as I mentioned in my statement, Mr. Speaker, it's very important for our elders, many of them are getting up there in age. We have a high population of elders in my riding. So would the Minister be willing to hire someone to go door-to-door, especially for the elders, Mr. Speaker? If not only for the elders, to ensure that we get their information, what's working and what's not working for them.
I, too, care about elders within our communities, and I also want to get as many replies to the survey as possible; however, for us to hire someone specifically to go door-to-door in communities to solicit the survey answers would be a financially huge cost and, in all honesty, I'd rather put that money that I have with housing towards homes for people versus collecting the data. So I will put a more concentrated effort into the radio campaign. I will let people know that it doesn't only have to be the survey. They can send me an email, they can write a letter, whatever way they can get feedback in. I will ensure that our local housing organizations, our government service officers remind them to get out there to specifically try to get as many seniors as possible. I would also like to ask, like the wonderful lady who said our prayer, to work together with our MLAs. I have been posting it on my Facebook and I am hoping that the MLAs will also help promote the survey through their Facebook or other means that they have possible to get as much opinions as we can.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don’t agree with the Minister on that one. You know, it's a small price to pay to get a high turnout rate for, especially, a survey of this importance, Mr. Speaker. You know, I'm very disappointed to get that response, but I knew it was coming. Once the survey is completed, what is the Housing Corporation's next steps towards its full policy review and development of a new strategic plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The next steps once we compile the survey results, all of the surveys are entered into what's called the Survey Monkey. Some of the input that has come has been through letters through emails, not all have come through surveys, so we have people actually that are manually entering that data into the Survey Monkey. It will be broken up. The Survey Monkey is able to break things up by communities as the MLAs see when we produced the numbers. It's been able to break things up by if it's a government worker, if it's someone in housing, if it's public housing, if someone in home ownership. We're able to be very specific.
When we get the results, we're looking for solutions. We will be sorting out the policy changes based on, in all honesty, three piles. One pile, easy policies that can be changed without a lot of thought but just makes sense; a second pile that might take a little bit more work; and a longer term pile that might take legislative changes or a potential interdepartmental work, and it'll be put foot to the ground and feet running and we will be pumping them out as soon as possible. Once we get the proposed changes in, I would ask to work with the Members to be able to provide the results before it's finalized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
