Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today, I spoke about seniors and disabled homeowners and their need to be able to access assistance from this government to conduct regular preventive maintenance work on their homes.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation provide this House with the number of seniors and disabled homeowners that were assisted through the Seniors and/or Disabled Preventive Maintenance Initiative program prior to the introduction of the CARE program?
Mr. Speaker, in the information I have, in 2004-2005, there were 168 clients; in 2005-2006, 156; and in 2006-2007, 162.
I’d like to thank the Minister for the answer. I would like to, once again, emphasize the need for providing assistance to seniors and disabled homeowners who are doing preventive maintenance work on their homes. Can the Minister tell me if these homeowners can access preventive maintenance only programs today to have work done on their homes in the fall?
Mr. Speaker, under the CARE program…. The Member indicated in his Member’s statement that there was a consolidation of programs, and the one that now captures the seniors and disabled funding is the CARE Program. Seniors are now eligible to apply every year for up to $2,000. There is, as well, a larger home repair program for seniors in their own homes for a forgivable loan for $90,000 that’s repayable — or forgivable — up to anywhere from one to ten years. The previous amount was, I believe, $20,000 over ten years, and you couldn’t reapply for ten years. In this new one, as soon as it’s paid off, you’re eligible to reapply.
Mr. Speaker, with the current CARE program in place, there’s such things as a requirement for full insurance on the program. Some of my constituents, Mr. Speaker, live in log homes. There are no fire hydrants and no full-time firefighters. This all adds to the cost of insurance. For example, insurance on one unit that’s approximately 1,000 square feet with these dynamics to it will cost $3,500 — not affordable for seniors.
Under the old Seniors and/or Disabled Preventive Maintenance program, they were able to access that program without a requirement to carry insurance, which is now a requirement in the new programs.
Would the Minister be prepared to meet with me to discuss other options for bringing preventive maintenance programs to the seniors and disabled persons in my riding, in order to provide options to the seniors where they are not required to have all the various requirements under the current CARE program?
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the concerns of the Member, and I recognize that in some cases our policy design and program design tend to have a very modern, urban focus and sometimes maybe undervalues the reality that in small communities where people burn wood — as the Member indicated, they may be living in log homes or older homes where they don’t have fire hydrants and those type of things…. So those are very legitimate concerns.
I would extend the invitation that the Member made. In fact, I would like to broaden it to say that I would be very pleased to sit down with the housing officials and the appropriate committee to talk about issues like the Member has raised and improvements that could be made if there are policy issues or process issues and/or re-profiling of funding.
This current program amalgamation was done trying to improve services. If, after this particular length of time, as we look back and we recognize that there are areas of improvement required, we’re definitely interested in identifying those, as well as identifying what improvements we can get done.
