Thank you, Minister, and I appreciate that there's not a clock at the witness desk, so sometimes I might sort of let you know when it's time to wrap things up.
The NWT Housing Corporation in the main estimates starts at page 345, but as always we'll defer the total until we look at the activity summaries, the first of which is on pages 352 to 354, community housing services. So I'll give committee a moment, and if we have comments or questions on community housing services please indicate when you're speaking which page you're talking about so we can all follow along.
I also ask that the first time, at least, that committee uses some of these abbreviations like IB land, CMHC, these type of acronyms, if you just let us know what it is so people following along in Hansard know what we're all talking about. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'd like to start by asking about the surpluses that some of the local housing authorities have last year. The witnesses produced a total number, and I believe it was in the range of about $10 million. I'm wondering what the status of those surpluses is now and what plans those local housing authorities have made to spend those surpluses? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The total at the end of the fiscal year was $5,762,221 with the local housing organizations. I agree, it is not appropriate. We have asked all of the local housing organizations to provide us a game plan on what they are going to do with their surpluses because that money should be going into people's homes.
Also, in our budget, you will see there is a decrease of $212,000 that we have put into the local housing organizations. The reason we are doing that is, if they have over a $5 million surplus, we need to reuse that money for different areas, but it will be casebycase because not all LHOs are equally at the same surplus. Ones with huge surpluses will be getting less funding until they can address their surpluses. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the answer. Could the Minister tell us what guidelines she is giving the LHOs to come up with their plan? What kind of guidelines has she asked them to meet in coming up with the plan? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The direction that we have given to the local housing organizations is that they need to use their surpluses, provide us with a plan on how they are going to use those surpluses to reinvest in housing stock and/or to do renovations to existing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, could the Minister clarify that, if an LHO had enough money to buy a unit or more than one unit, that they would be able to do that? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are open to any of the recommendations that the local housing organizations do provide. However, recognizing that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation will have ownership of those, it does need to fit within our own capital plans. If they have something that works with our capital plans, we are more than willing to work with them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not really sure what it means to fit within the capital plan. Could the Minister clarify, please?
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few months back, in the fall I believe it was, all of the departments provided their business plans to the Legislative Assembly. Within that business planning process was broken down a list of capital projects, and so each community has, within those approved business plans that we have already done, a list of the capital projects for each community. That is what I am referring to. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will leave that issue and go on to another one. That is utilities. During the business plan review, the corporation presented a plan for increasing the cost of utilities to tenants. I am wondering if we could have an update on when that plan is going to be implemented and whether it is the reason that utility costs are shown as going down on page 353? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The increase will be implemented April 1st. The goal of that is to try to actually get more people to conserve energy. When people don't pay for their own utilities, we tend to find a lot of open windows in communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, what kinds of energy efficiency and furnace maintenance and so on is being offered to ensure that the houses themselves are in the best possible condition, in addition asking people to lower their utility consumption? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of the initiatives we are doing is preventative maintenance, where we will go in and actually check their furnaces, et cetera, so that we are on top of the game instead of behind the game. The other thing that we are doing is all new buildings and all retrofits are now using higher standard of insulation, triplepane windows, LED lights, and boiler systems, to name a few of the energy efficiency things that we are implementing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could the Minister remind us please how much the utility costs are going up this year? I believe it is a multiyear plan, so what the utility costs will go up by each year rolling out? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Martin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As was mentioned, the Housing Corporation plans to proceed with the adjustment to our userpay subsidy program for power. We will be increasing the rate an additional 6 cents per kilowatt hour. That will translate to an increase from 15 cents to 21 cents per kilowatt hour that our public housing tenants would be paying. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Martin. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the answer. So there are no additional increases planned beyond April 1st. Is that correct?
Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Martin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are additional adjustments planned for an additional two years, actually. This is intended to be a multiyear initiative as opposed to implementing a larger increase in one year. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Martin. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could the witness tell us what years two and three look like in terms of cents per kilowatt hour increase? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Martin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In 201819, there is a further increase planned in this initiative, again a further 6 cent increase. Then, the year following that, the plan is to see final adjustments to bring our public housing tenants' power rates in line with other residents'. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Martin. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I understand that in year two it will go up by 6 cents again, and then it will be 27 cents a kilowatt hour, but what is the figure for year three, please? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Martin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The final year of implementation would see tenants paying 28 cents per kilowatt hour. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Martin. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, by the time full implementation of these rate increases takes place, how much money will the Housing Corporation be saving on utilities? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Martin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The expectation is that at the end of this initiative we should be saving approximately $3 million. That funding, Mr. Chairman, will be directed towards addressing the declining CMHC funding. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Martin. Minister.
I just really want to add on to that that this is not only about taking costs away from the Housing Corporation. Really, it is one thing to address the CMHC declining funding, but it is really about energy conservation. I would rather lower my cost of rent than keep providing utility bills where people are opening doors and leaving windows open in the winter. It is about energy conservation, as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green, your time has expired, but you can go back on the list if you wish. Next, I have Mr. McNeely.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I may have asked this question here last year on reviewing efficiencies by social housing ownership divesting the social housing unit; and maybe picking a house downtown Tulita, for example, okay, so-and-so has a three-bedroom housing unit. Sharing the information of operating this unit, utility copies for the last three, four, five years, whatever, and seeing if there is interest of the current occupant if they want to buy that social unit. Is there any progress that has been made in that area, Mr. Chair?
Thank you, Mr. McNeely. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is actually one of the areas that we are looking with our program renewal. Like I had said earlier, currently we are spending for homeowners you can access $100,000 every 10 years for renovations; for public housing it is costing us over $200,000 for 10 years. It does make sense that people who have shown, not for everyone but people who have shown that they have the ability to pay and they have been reliable that they would move into homeownership versus public housing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
