Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now the community housing plans have taken a different approach with the allocation of the distinctionbased funding that was allocated to the Indigenous governments. And they are now using these plans to identify their needs, and now they've received the funding. It hasn't stopped the work that we are currently doing. We're still working in collaboration with them, but some of the communities have just put a hold on some of these plans being developed. But we do have six of them that have been completed and nine that are being developed.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, all right. So thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to the Minister and the staff. So what is NWT Housing going to use these plans for when are they used in developing the capital plan for the housing corp, or what specifically are these plans used for now? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. These plans are really I just kind of want to go back a little bit. In the last government, this was really emphasized by the former president at that time to get these community housing plans finalized. These were to be advocating documents that identified every single housing need because Housing did understand that every housing need throughout the Northwest Territories is different. It's not a blanket one response solution. And looking at these documents to be guided by the Indigenous governments and at the community level but also having our conversations with the federal government on how to better fund the Northwest Territories, also recognizing we do have 17 Indigenous governments as well too and settled land claim areas. It was quite diverse. But the point of these housing plans was to identify the significant need at the ground level from the communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I guess I would hope that the housing corp uses these plans as well in developing its own capital requirements. But I want to move on to apprenticeships.
And I just would like to get some assurance that the housing corp actually builds in apprenticeship requirements in any contracts that it issues. So if the Minister can tell me that that is the case in their practice, I'd be a lot happier. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister Chinna.
I'm happy to say that is absolutely correct. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Wow, that's great. I got a happy Minister and a happy MLA. Okay, so can you tell me how many apprenticeship positions are created and how successful you folks are in actually getting those positions filled? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The last number I had to date that I could remember at the top of my head was 33. We've had projects throughout the oh sorry, 35 not 33. And these requirements are built into the contracts that are put out there throughout the Northwest Territories. And it's also when we did get the funding from CIRNAC from the federal government, that I wanted to create an opportunity at the ground level to create local employment and to be able to really acknowledge the education and training and try to really enhance this opportunity. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks. I have nothing further on this activity, and I want to thank the Minister and staff. Thank you.
Thank you. Questions under the executive? Member from Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the Members here, I think the other day, alluded to the housing corp being work for third parties to generate revenue. And I guess I have a I kind of have an issue with government competing against private sector. And we seen that, you know, with the RCMP units. And it's not just with this department. It's also with infrastructure and other ones as well. So is this going to be sort of a new way of doing business? Are you going to is the department going to go out there and start looking for opportunities that compete against private sector in the future and ramp that up? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This was a onetime opportunity where the federal government had reached out to housing corporation at that time to deliver the housing units. And no, that's not going to be our practice in the future. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, that's good to hear. You know, I think that we have to you know, instead of competing against private sector, we got to support them. And, you know, they're out there, you know, creating jobs as well, and they've got their own infrastructure to pay for so it's important.
Just on there was some talk, I guess, about homelessness and, you know, the facility in Inuvik. And I'm not sure what the cost of running that facility is, but I'm sure it was up in the $2 million mark? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll have vicepresident Jim Martin respond. I don't know if we actually have that tallied up number on hand. We might have to get back to the Member.
Vicepresident Martin.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. The cost currently to operate the two Inuvik shelters is approximately $2 million. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I just find it strange is that in other communities, you know, say for instance Hay River, I'll use as an example, we've got a day and night shelter there and I'm not sure, we're probably Housing, I think might be putting $350,000 into it. So if we're spending $2 million there, I'm not sure what we're spending here in Yellowknife as well, but are we getting, I guess, value for the dollars we're putting out, or do we only get value for the dollars we're putting out when we have NGOs looking after it versus government? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This was a very unique situation that happened in the Beaufort Delta, and I don't look at practicing this going in the future. I want to more invest into education and training for NGOs. I want to more be able to partner with them. With this case, it was quite severe at that time. We were looking at extreme freezing temperatures. There was actually really no NGO that wanted to step up and take on the responsibility. We could not just leave this operation abandoned at that time. And we did have conversations with Indigenous governments. They weren't ready to take this on. They did establish a working group but there was really no commitment at that time from the community to run the operation and we fell into an obligation where we had to treat this as an emergency. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I thank you for that answer. You know, when it comes to, you know, people who are, you know, basically nowhere to live, there's no doubt we have to you know, we have to step in and do something. But at the same time, you know, when we're spending money, what I'd like to see is that we actually get some value and we take a look and, you know, do an analysis to see if we're actually doing the right thing and going down the right path, because we seem to be putting you know, we seem to be putting money into different programs and there may be better ways to do it. So I'm not sure if, you know, if you have the staff to do those evaluations and look at other options. Maybe you just want to comment on that. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll take that back to the department as well because I don't want to take work away from, and the responsibility, from the nonprofit organizations. Like I had said, I'd rather support them. And I do know they're significantly underfunded, and this is something we recognize as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm pleased to hear that you say that you recognize they are underfunded. Not only are they underfunded but they don't have any longterm funding as well. And I think if we want to see some success and make sure that we get good value that we extend those terms out with them. And yeah, so that's I guess just more of a comment. So thank you, that's all.
Thank you. Are there any further questions under the executive from Members? No further questions. Thank you, we will move on to finance oh, okay. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to ask the Minister, the executive, about eight months ago we passed a motion to transfer public housing units that tenant lived in for over 20 years, for most of their life, where they raised their children. And today I just wanted to ask the Minister how many of those units were transferred?
Thank you. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We did roll out that initiative earlier in this government as well. We didn't have such a significant uptake. I was under the assumption that we probably would have gotten rid of a thousand of our units; that's what I was assuming. But what had come back is that in response that a lot of the people weren't ready to get into homeownership and looking at a transfer and the responsibility of 100 percent of the operation and maintenance and the utilities that come with it as well. To date, we've received 52 applications. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.
Yes, I know there are people that I have been talking to, they want they're waiting. And I sent in numerous emails to the Minister to get in contact with these people. And there's a lot of people that are I know people have different perspectives. Some people in favour. Some people are not in favour. That's up to them. But there are a lot of people that are interested. They want to become a homeowner. And they're waiting patiently. They're waiting from the executive office where all the decisions are being made. So I just wanted to ask the Minister will this be completed within this fiscal year?
Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd have to follow up on those requests coming forward because what I've seen so far is that there's a number of circumstances that lie within those transactions as well too. And just looking at every file but also trying to create fair, adequate opportunity for them as well. I don't want to see units being transferred and then later on we've transferred something that needed $100,000 worth of work, and we just basically walked away. I want to make sure that they are secured. But the priority is to get them out of the social programming. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Monfwi.
Yeah, no, well this will really free up a lot of housing for the Housing to build more houses in small communities. And I can't believe it that we do have a homeless specialist in our own territory where there's 50 percent of the population are Indigenous and most of the people that are living in those units are Indigenous people. You know, and it is I find it offensive because in our like, we never really had any issues with this in the past. And this goes back to colonization. From the beginning, we've been asked we've been told how to live, what to do, all those things. There's a lot of legislations in place. And now with this handbook, whatever, tenant's handbook is also telling tenants what to do. And I find that very offensive. And I know that and they said they were going to, you know, like, put it in Indigenous language as well. Like, we never really had that issues. We never had an issue with homelessness before. Now, because of colonization, we do have a serious, serious housing crisis in small communities. Even in Tlicho region alone, we have more than six people living in a single household, and transferring this unit to longterm tenants. And I know what she's saying that I know there are some arrears that's probably stopping some of the transfer to take place. Like I said before, some of these outstanding arrears stems from going back using the last year's income tax notice of assessment. And I said it before that last year maybe they were working; this year they're not working. And some years are good that way. Just like it's being reported on the CBC news report. So I just wanted to ask the Minister when can she do the transfer? Like, can she do it sooner than later? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Housing is there ready and available to be working with these individuals in making sure that we provide the adequate services. We've got 52 applications so far. And like I had said, that the condition of the units as well too that we need to make sure that when we transfer these units over that they are they don't come with issues. We've got to make sure that they we are transferring over units that don't actually have the problems. And I've travelled throughout the Northwest Territories. I've pretty much been to every single community throughout the territory, and I've seen a number of issues. I've been into a public housing unit where we had tenants using a what you call those, outhouse what is it? Honey bucket. You know, and we lack our services as well too in trying to people to maintain our units and housing maintain those as well. And to try to adequately get people purchasing these units, I need to make sure that they're safe and they're healthy units that we're transferring. I don't want to create the barriers for these transfers, but we do have this opportunity that's out there, but we just don't have the huge uptake that I was expecting. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you. I know that within our LHO, they are understaffed in Behchoko, Whati, and Gameti, and there's nothing in Wekweeti. There's no LHO office there. So I know that they are understaffed and they are overworked and, as a result, many of these units are sitting empty. Some of them have been sitting empty for over ten years. And I can tell you there's a house that has been sitting, that's vacant since 2009. To date, it's still sitting vacant. In 2009, it was in good operation. And what the Minister's office should have done was gave that unit to the family member that are living in the area or the family that grew up in that house. And there's a lot of them like that. And I can tell you that there's a lot of people the reason I am pushing is because a lot of people, they want to be a homeowner but they can fix up those units as well. I know in my region, they want to fix up those units. They want to become a homeowner. And we do have a lot of skilled people too as well. And this is a good project for the trades program, even with the SNAP that my colleague mentioned during our Member's statement. So there's a lot of opportunity, work, and the Minister shouldn't be making a decision for the people that the people should make. You know, like they should be given a chance, an opportunity, to become homeowners. And she said I don't want to create barriers. You know, I mean my goodness. Like I said, our people have been here, and I know I heard her say before that I don't want to set up people to fail. We've been here for thousands of years and we're going to be here for another ten thousands of years. You know, I just want this Minister to do the right thing. Just give those units away to those people, to the people. And the arrears is their mistake. It's not the people's mistake. It's the Housing that they created those arrears through their policy that is not working for the people in the Northwest Territories, and especially in my region because we have the highest arrears, housing arrears, on their book. So I think the housing it's up to her if she wants to answer me. But the Housing should do the right thing, transfer those units as soon as possible. Thank you.
