Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we can get that communication out. The communications were done mostly through the LHOs, but we will get that communication so that you can share it with your constituency. Thank you.
Thank you. The Member is happy with that response. I will call this activity. NWT Housing Corporation, community housing services, operations expenditures summary, total activity, $56,043,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Please turn to the next activity, beginning on page 377, finance and infrastructure services. What's that? Am I on the wrong one? The executive. My mistake, committee. The executive, on pages 375 and 376. It is a very short activity. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to go to one of my favourite topics, and that is the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation web page. I will give them credit for improving the look of it. There seems to be more information available here, but I think that there is still quite a bit of work to be done. I will just give a couple of examples. The co-investment fund page, when you go there, the links are broken to get more information about new construction stream, repair and renewal stream. There are a few application forms found in some of the different web pages, but is it still the intention of the corporation to do a major overhaul of the website? At least, that is what I think that they have told me the last couple of years when they have been here. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since I have been in the role, I have been meeting with a lot of leadership, and we need to have these programs and services given out to our stakeholders and our partners. We will be focusing on getting the website done. We are still working on it, and hopefully in May/June we will have something more updated. That will be after the Northern Housing Summit, as well, so we will get some feedback from some of our leadership on how we can make that website even more efficient in terms of getting the programs and services out. Through you, Mr. Chair, maybe I will ask my president and CEO to give a little bit more information.
Thank you. Mr. Williams.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct. It has been taking a while. I think it was over a year ago that it was raised in committee. We want to update our website. We are trying to improve it. One of the things that we are doing as a government is we are trying to update all of the websites. We are working closely with corporate comms. We want the website to have the same look and feel as the rest of the GNWT. That work is under way right now. We were hoping to get it done before today, but like the Minister said, we will be able to report on it in June. The new website will be up and running. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I played hockey with Mr. Williams last night, and he wouldn't let me score on him, so I said that I was going to have to be extra tough on him today. More seriously, I don't know how you are going to do this at the housing summit in Inuvik, but maybe you might walk people through what is currently on the website and get some ideas about how it could be improved. You know, even on the strategic renewal page, you can go off to a document and see things, but then there is a list of the changes that have been made, but there are no links to any other applications forms, guidelines, which I am sure you guys must have in place. Contacts? Like, somebody needs to be able to go to the website, get the information about a program, and get the application form, and go off and send it to the right person or know who they can talk to in their community. Is that the kind of work that the corporation intends to do to the website? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is exactly the work that we want to do. We want to make sure that our website is informative to all of our residents as well as all of our stakeholders and partners. We do have to work with corporate communications, and we will make sure that that work will get completed. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. O'Reilly.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. Okay. I have raised this now this is the third year, I think, so, come July 1st, if it's not ready, I am going to come back and ask the Minister what's going on. I appreciate the sincerity of which they say they are going to go ahead and get this work done. I just want it done sooner than later. Thanks, Mr. Chair. That is all I have.
Thank you. Nothing further on this activity. I will call it. NWT Housing Corporation, executive, operations expenditure summary, $2,060,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Now, turn to finance and infrastructure services, beginning on page 377. The operations expenditure summary is on page 378. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On page 378, there is a report that debt repayment is forecasted in the next year to be $1,004,000, and I am wondering how much debt is going to still be outstanding after that amount is collected, debt to the Housing Corporation. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Martin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Currently, this is the cash portion of the debt payments that the Housing Corporation makes on an annual basis to CMHC. This is associated with the debt that came back in 1997 under the social housing agreement, when we basically acquired the social housing units. Projected at the end of March 2020, we are expecting to have approximately $33.7 million of remaining debt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not very well informed in this area, so what I understand it, though, to say is that this debt has been paid for the last 22 years and that there are many years to go before it comes down to zero. Is that correct? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is correct. As Mr. Martin had referred to, we still have $33.7 million, and we will continue to make those payments since we took over the social housing. Thank you.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you. Further on this page, I see the spending on finance and administration has gone up by about $650,000, and I am wondering why. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There has been incremental funding for the emergency shelters program transferred through from the Department of ECE, specifically $397,000 in that area. There has also been an increase in the TSC chargebacks budget post establishment of the IT shared services, and that specific dollar amount was $234,000. Thank you.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you for that. I understand that recently there was an agreement to transfer homelessness from ECE to the Housing Corporation. Is that reflected in these mains? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that's the emergency shelters program. Our thinking around that was to have all programs under one department so it will be easier for applications to be processed with our partnerships. Thank you.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you, and so there is an increase in spending on the homelessness shelters forecasted for the next fiscal year. Can you tell me what that money is going to pay for? Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Martin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. About $397,000 was allocated to support the shelters with additional staffing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you. So this is not a pilot program; this is ongoing staffing costs that we will see in every budget going forward. Is that correct? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is correct, and we can also look at providing more detail for the Member in terms of how those dollars are going to be spent throughout the territory in our funded shelters. Thank you.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sure, I will take the Minister up on that. If he would like to give an overview of how that money is distributed and what those positions are about, it would be useful. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
We will commit to that.
Thank you. Ms. Green.
Thank you.
Thank you. Nothing further from Ms. Green. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess this has been something I've been asking for the last two or three years, anyway: can the Minister provide an update on the RCMP housing projects? Has any construction begun, and what's the status of the work? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
