Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions for the Minister of Housing. Pretty much every one of my constituency meetings, I get concerns about long waiting lists for housing, upwards of three years. I'd like to ask the Minister: are there plans to increase our housing stock in our communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As all Members know, we do have a capital plan to address housing needs across the Northwest Territories. As the Member knows, I don't really have to inform him, but we have done good work in Aklavik with the Joe Greenland Centre. We did do some renovations to that building. He was there. We opened up the Northern Pathways to Housing, which is a great program. We're also working on a seniors' complex in Fort McPherson, which should be completed this summer. Most recently, as Members know, and we're working on getting that report completed, we did have a housing summit in Inuvik, where we had leaders from the Member's region and from right across the territory. We also had the standing committee attend that housing summit, as well.
As I have said in this House many times, Mr. Speaker, we are working on community housing plans, and we initially were looking at just developing six during this fiscal year. Right now, we're working on 10, and we'll continue to encourage and work with our leaders in the communities to approach myself, as well as approach the NWT Housing Corporation, to look at addressing those.
I have said a number of times in this House what a good job the department is doing, building new homes, but a lot of times all we're doing is replacing units, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to ask: when can our residents expect to see our number of housing units increase rather than staying at the same level?
I have mentioned in the House that we did get a carve-out of the Co-Investment Fund. We signed our bilateral agreement as well with the federal government, and we do have a great partnership with CMHC, as well as industry, and working with our Indigenous government organizations to address the issue. As I mentioned at the Housing Summit, it can't all be relied on government. We've got to have a partnership. We've got to work together to address this, and that includes CMHC. It includes industry. It includes our Indigenous government organizations, and we have been seeing that, Mr. Speaker, over the past year.
We will continue to promote our programs, and we want to focus on having our leaders in the communities reach out to myself and the NWT Housing Corporation to see how we can work together to address the housing needs throughout the Northwest Territories, but in this case, have the leaders in the Beaufort-Delta reach out, and we can have this chat.
I know that the department is trying to sell you on how its switch would free up other spaces. Has the department sold any units to date, which the department can now replace?
We are working on this lease-to-own program. We are trying to get that information out to some of our good tenants in the public housing units. We also have a home ownership program that we are piloting. The Northern Pathways to Housing has shown some really good success already, especially in Simpson. We have one in Behchoko. We will see how things work out in Aklavik. I think we are going to see some really good, positive things coming out of there. We will continue, and I have always prided myself on partnerships to bring better solutions together. I would encourage the Member to reach out to his leadership, approach myself, and approach the NWT Housing Corporation to see how we can focus on this.
As I have said, the community housing plans are going to be a game-changer, and we are going to see some really good things, I think, coming out in the next few years.
Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
