Thanks, Madam Chair. As I said, I just keep getting more and more confused here. All of this money on page 374 flows through from the district offices to third parties? Is that what I believe Mr. Martin said? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister.
How can I explain this? As the Housing Corporation, we have funding that is available. We have the district offices. According to programs that we deliver, each district office would be delivering programs that are identified. We would flow through the money from headquarters into each of the districts equally, depending on the amount of programs and services that they would require and need. Then, they would deliver those programs on behalf of us at the executive level. I am going to have Mr. Carpenter elaborate on that a little bit more. I hope that makes sense, but if it doesn't, please keep on asking those questions so I could make sure I get through to Member. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Carpenter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. All of those program items listed under contributions, those are funding that, as the Minister indicated, goes directly to the district office who delivers those programs. The one that kind of sticks out a bit is Habitat for Humanity. That's a budget we have set aside because they have expressed interest in doing one or two programs in the territory. We have that budget set up. We are hoping to do that. Once we get an indication of which communities those projects will take place, we will funnel that particular budget down to those district offices to work with Habitat for Humanity. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I think that I am going to have to go offline, because I still don't understand the way that this is set out or accounted for. These are programs that are administered through the Housing Corporation. It looks like money flows through the district offices, but it doesn't quite add up with money on the previous page. Maybe it's too late in the day or something; I just don't understand this. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I really want to make sure that I answered this question correctly. Is the Member looking at the grants and contributions for each of the district offices that he says does not add up to the number on page 374?
Member for Frame Lake, did you just want to clarify?
Thanks, Madam Chair. I think I have spent the last seven or eight minutes trying to understand what the relationship is of the contributions listed on page 374 to the line items on 373, and I haven't gotten to the bottom of it in a way that I can understand. Probably, with the Minister and her assistants there, I am not going to get to the bottom of it in the next 24 hours. I am going to have to go offline and ask them to better explain this. Thanks, Madam Chair.
All right. We will move on, then. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marsi cho, Madam Chair. I am looking at page 374, as well. I just want to make a quick comment on this. This is one of those items that I get a lot of complaints about from people in my constituency, especially when accessing things like the SAFE program and CARE. It's just frustrating, because a lot of the time, there are barriers for things like land tenure and whatnot, but I'll start with my questioning now. I know that, for programs such as SAFE and seniors aging in place retrofits and repairs, they're $10,000 each. To me, sometimes, that's just not enough for a lot of repairs that happen. Anything that happens is really expensive in the home for a lot of our units. I'm going to ask the Minister: have there been any recent reviews of these programs to increase this amount to help those who have barriers to getting these programs? Marsi cho.
Thank you, Member. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am familiar with the question that the Member is asking about, and I do understand that land tenure and insurances do cause barriers for our program delivery. Going forward, I am going to be doing a review of the current programs that we do deliver. I do realize that the cost of material and the cost to get these improvements complete and done in a timely manner and to be acknowledged in the applications for rejection or approval, but I would like to see the majority of them approved going forward. I will just have Mr. Carpenter elaborate on this a little bit more. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Carpenter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. When we set up our emergency repair program in there, under securing assistance for emergencies, we set that limit for true emergencies, such as, a common one is when people don't have heat. In terms of looking at the amount of money available for homes that need larger amounts of monies for repair, the Minister has directed us to look at that. Where you'll see, probably, positive change for the programming is under our major repair programming, and that's the Contributing Assistance for Repairs and Enhancements, CARE. We are working as hard as we can to make that change, and we wanted to let the Members know today that we anticipate positive change coming soon in that area. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marsi, Madam Chair, and thank you for the response. I am looking at this a little more, too. I'm reading between the lines here. I just mentioned about barriers such as insurance and land tenure, and I looked at the fuel tank. I know, coming from the insurance background, a lot of risks, when they are assessed by a lot of these insurance companies, if you live in a place like Hay River, Fort Smith, or Yellowknife, the insurance rates are reasonable, and they're really dependent on how close you are to, say, a fire department. If you live in a place like Lutselk'e, or even Detah is considered outside of that range, insurance rates skyrocket, and it's just simply not affordable if you want to, say, protect your assets, if you own your own home.
Say we go down this road, and yes, we'll have own ownership programs, and, yes, I've finally got my home, but you have to worry about insurance in small communities. It's stifling, because the cost of living is so high already, and you're going to ask somebody to pay $3,000 to just insure the home for a year? It's a really, really tall ask already. A lot of us even living in larger centres, like here in Yellowknife, that is still a really expensive proposition. You still have to budget for that. I guess my question to the Minister, and this may be a question that I think some other Ministers might look at, maybe the Minister of Finance, is: what are we going to do about this insurance problem in the small communities? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am familiar with this, as well, because it's come up quite often in looking at the insurances within the smaller communities. I do understand. Land tenure is also an issue, as well, because you need the land in order to insure your home. I see the barriers like that. Right now, the Housing Corporation is in conversation with CIBC. The conversation is not anything that is going to be committed, but it's a conversation that is happening. Also, looking at the insurances is that what can we provide that's affordable and available to the people of the Northwest Territories. Looking at the insurances, I am very interested in securing our Northwest Territories Housing Corporation units. If it is our personal units going forward, I'm interested in making sure that we have security on them. Whether we have engaged a mortgage with a client to making sure that if the house were to burn down or something were to happen, if this were to happen five times throughout the territory, we don't have $500,000, $800,000 times ten to be rebuilding these structures. We're just trying to look for initiatives going forward that would best secure the people of the Northwest Territories that have the programming with the Housing Corporation or public housing as well. I hope that answers your question. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the response. Just listening to that, I think there's a big, broader issue of insurance in the North. I think that's probably something I'll ask in the House here later on because I think this is something we need to talk about and figure out some common sense approaches to this. Again, this goes to the cost of living in the North. It's so huge, and we're going to need to find appropriate ways to help people in the North to protect their assets, especially in small communities. Marsi cho. I have nothing further.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Did you have a response to that? Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in regards to the home insurance, I just really want to be clear, as well, that through the Housing Corporation, we have a variety of programs, but the areas where I'm interested in, in insuring, is home ownership. I'm not interested in insuring the units that we're building stairs and we're building ramps. I'm not interested in doing that. I'm interested in the long-term security for the client if they do become homeowners. I want to make sure that they are secured and they do have the financial security going forward should anything happen to their own personal unit. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. I'll move onto Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the, I'm going to just say, frankly, struggles that I've had with the Housing Corporation is to feel that the corporation has embraced its role as a social housing agency versus a landlord of social housing. There was a very promising initiative that was discussed at an anti-poverty round table about 18 months ago in which the Housing Corporation was piloting a housing stability program for its public housing tenants in Behchoko. This was the kind of program that was offered when I worked at the YWCA. The intention of the program was to do troubleshooting with tenants so they could stabilize their housing and develop good tenancy records so that they could obtain housing on the market if they had the money to do so. I think that was a pilot program, and I'm interested to know whether the pilot has been evaluated and what the results of that evaluation are? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Member, for your comment. I am familiar with this program, as well. It is due to expire. We did end up creating a new position. It was a housing stability worker that was working out of Yellowknife but back and forth to Behchoko. It was the first of our pilots, and it did work very well. It's something that I'm interested in working with and expanding, going forward, throughout the Northwest Territories because the issues are quite common throughout the territory dealing with homelessness and having people transition from public housing into the housing units, and the social impacts as well, too. Unfortunately, the position is to expire March 31st, but I'm looking at that position to continue. I will have, Mr. Carpenter elaborate on the program, as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Carpenter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Minister indicated, we're just in the process of that position's about to expire, and then we're going to do our assessment as to its effectiveness. Just to elaborate on what that position was created to do is: we wanted to do a pilot project in a community where there were tenants facing homelessness or evictions. It's really more of this individual works with those tenants as a navigator, not only for what we can do in terms of housing, but other government departments that can provide wraparound services to keep these people housed. That's what we were doing. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a real good-news/bad-news story. The program worked, but it's going to expire. Why wasn't this position evaluated in advance of the expiry date? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Being the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, I'm looking for very strong initiatives and a very strong, positive approach. This was one of our successful positions that we've had dealing with the current situation we have throughout the Northwest Territories. I am invested into this position and positions likes this. Going forward, we do have an expiry date of March 31st, but it will be continuing. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the Minister for that. Does that mean that the person who occupies this position will still be employed by April 1st? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The person that was employed and working within this position, very strong skilled and very experienced with the Housing Corporation, I did have other plans for her, so we might be working with this a little bit differently. She does have a lot of skill that I would like to use in another area, so there might be a new person to fill this position. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't understand the point of blowing up a program that is working. It seems to me that given the fact that this program was in place for at least a couple of years, and the end date was a known end date, that the assessment of the program and the budgeting for a continuation since it proved successful, could have been done. The Minister is a new minister, but I don't know why the Housing Corporation didn't plan for success instead of waiting for this whole thing to lapse. Could someone explain that to me? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I looked at this position, and it's very successful. Unfortunately, I don't know why the position wasn't assessed prior to the expiration date of the end of the two-year pilot project. I will have Mr. Carpenter elaborate on that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Mr. Carpenter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This was a brand new initiative that we embarked on. We never did anything like this before, so we ran it as a pilot. Right from the start, we wanted to run it as a pilot to see how it worked out. As the Minister indicated, we're getting lots of positive results in terms of there has been diminished evictions in the community. This is something that we funded with our own resources. We don't have an official position for that, so that's what we have to work towards to establish the funding to continue with this program. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Again, I'm going to be very blunt. This is very poor practice. The Integrated Case Management program in the Department of Justice was a pilot program, and it was evaluated before its expiration date. Then the case was made for continued funding for the Integrated Case Management plan. That's what good planning looks like. The idea that this program has to lapse -- there aren't funds in it in this budget, so likely it won't be until the next budget that we see the funds for this. In the meantime, this person was effective. The program was effective. The program could be scaled up to communities and other parts of the NWT. I hear my colleagues talking about housing tenancy issues all the time, to do with arrears, damage, and other issues of that kind. My final question here will be: when do you anticipate coming to us to ask for money to continue this position and expand this program? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Member, for your comments. I do see the importance of this position. Once I heard about this position and I got to meet them and see what this position entailed and the success that had been brought forward in Behchoko and looking at the success that it's had, I wanted to look at this, as well, and see what it would look like if we expanded this out into the smaller communities and the effects that it would have. Going forward, this position, with the budget and where we're at right now, I would like to come forward in June and to look at this position. I want to add a little more to it, as well, and looking at the areas, as well. I'm really mindful of Nunakput and the Mackenzie Delta and the Beaufort-Delta, as well, that we do have significant situation up there. I want to be very creative with this position and look at the success and look long-term at this in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. We will move on to Member for Kam Lake.
