Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. I have spoken numerous times in the House before about the community residency policy. That is a policy that demands that NWT residents live in an NWT community for varying times up to one year before they can add their names to the public housing wait list. Can the Minister of housing speak to the goal of this policy? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through this policy, we have to display fairness and consistency throughout the territory. If we do not have this residency policy, we could have people throughout Canada coming into our territory and sitting on our wait list and having us not being able to properly and structurally, I want to say, allocate these units. We do have a strong and a long wait list, but the one-year policy that has been created for residency for the Northwest Territories is for the people of the Northwest Territories and newcomers coming into the territory, as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Minister's reference to fairness. I think that that is a fair comment, and I think that fairness is important. I think that fairness needs to be extended to the residents of the Northwest Territories, where we really do struggle with housing and people want fair access to safe and secure housing. This policy does not only prevent people from the rest of Canada putting their names on housing wait lists. It prevents Northwest Territories residents from putting their names on wait lists, from other communities. I think that that's why I keep asking these questions, is because I think this policy really needs to be revamped.
I think of different people across even Canada. When we look to our history, there are people from the Sixties Scoop who were adopted out to other families and might be living in other regions of Canada and might want to return home. There are people living in Yellowknife who might want the opportunity to return to their birth community, as well, and people living in communities who might want to be able to move to Yellowknife. I think that we need to look at this. However, I am wondering if the Minister can speak to what issue the community residency policy was originally trying to address and what was the original purpose of it.
The policy is to address the housing needs in that specific community. Since being Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, I have had several enquiries coming forward. We had families fleeing domestic abuse who we have had to relocate, and with that, we were able to work with those communities and the local LHOs that had created bylaws to address those unique situations. Also, we have students who are returning back from school, back to their home communities, where we are able to hold their unit for them, being able to house them upon their return.
However, then, I also really want to stress that we need a residency policy throughout the Northwest Territories. We need to show fairness and consistency. If we did not have this policy, we would have people and the waiting list exaggerated to a point where we were not able to work with that strongly. I want to be able to just really display that or really acknowledge that I do see that, where people are moving around throughout the territory, they have very unique, different situation, but we also have a wait list of people who are local, who are from the community, who have been on the wait list five, three, six months, it doesn't matter. We need to address the home community first.
I appreciate what the Minister is saying about addressing the home community first and about making sure that people from the community have access to housing in that community. Sometimes, what happens is people end up living in other communities for one reason or another, and I think there are other ways that we can address this policy and make it achieve both of our ends. I am wondering if the Minister would be willing to look at community membership or land claim beneficiary membership in lieu of a community residency policy to ensure that even people who have moved away, who are still land claim beneficiaries of the region, are still able to be prioritized within the public housing wait list.
The policy has created, as I said, fairness. Public housing is available for everybody. Looking at the residency requirements, I don't want to create silos, and I don't want to create division amongst that waiting list and amongst decisions being made at the local community level. Looking at that, I just want to also elaborate that the Housing Corporation works strongly with Indigenous groups throughout the territory. We just announced a $60 million co-investment fund that has been exhausted for the territory, and we do have Indigenous applications, people and groups who are coming forward wanting to address their wait lists and housing needs in their specific communities.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Just as a final question today, I am wondering if the Housing Corporation has ever reviewed the unintended consequences of this policy. If yes, what have they found, and if not, why not and would they be willing to look into that? Thank you.
Yes, we have been speaking about this policy. Like I had said, I want to make sure that the policy is fair. We travel throughout the Northwest Territories. I see the wait lists myself, and I see the community residents. They are homeless, and they are travelling, and they are house to house. There's overcrowding. That is what I would like to address first. Then, when we have community members who are wanting to move back into the Northwest Territories, we need to work with that. Already, if they are entering into one of our smaller communities, we already have a wait list that is significant. The need for housing, I hear you, is pretty much a crisis in the territory.
I just want to elaborate and speak about the co-investment fund. That was a strong relationship that we did have with the federal government to exhaust that co-investment fund when the expiry date for that was 2028, we were able to exhaust it in three years. That displays what a housing crisis we have in the Northwest Territories. It is significant. We need more money to put houses on the ground. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
