Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my question is dealing with the moratorium that the Minister of Housing released earlier this week. It is a good program and I think it’s a great opportunity to educate the people in the communities on how to get back and educated into the housing programs, as well as getting them back on track with a payment plan. In the four months that we have from now until the end of the fiscal year, I wanted to ask the Minister of Housing what is the plan to work with these people in the communities to get back on a payment plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We would encourage all tenants out there to go in to their local LHOs and work out a repayment plan with them. The LHOs are usually very receptive to folks coming in and trying to enter into repayment plans. Then once they do that, then we would encourage them to honour their repayment plan. That way, come April 1st, they’re not in any danger of being evicted. Thank you.
That sounds like a good plan in the broad scope of things. However, we do know that some tenants will not go and speak to their LHOs. Is there a plan in place for the LHOs? I know they do a lot of work and we don’t want to overburden them, but is there a plan in place to go and speak to the tenants in their home, especially the ones that might be mobile enough or also with some language barriers? Is there a plan in place to do an outreach program to go and speak with the tenants? Thank you.
Obviously, we’d like to see the tenants take the initiative, those that are able to, to come in and speak to their local LHOs and work out a repayment plan. The tenant relations officers in all our LHOs do a very good job in keeping in contact with tenants. For those that have mobility issues or those that maybe have a language barrier, as I said yesterday, most of our folks in the LHOs are from the community, a lot of them can speak the language; however, we wouldn’t want that to be a burden to those that can’t understand English as well as they should. We would do what we can to ensure that they understand the process as it’s been laid out. Thank you.
My next question is: Come April 1st, the end of the fiscal year, any tenants across the Northwest Territories who have not taken that initiative to get on a payment plan, what is the course of action that the Housing Corporation is going to take for those who have not honoured this agreement that the Minister has put forth? Thank you.
Come April 1st, for those that haven’t entered into repayment plans, obviously, as much as we don’t like doing it, we will have to evict them. I’d like people to see this as another opportunity to enter into repayment plans; not only that, but honour it. We’re quite confident that we’ll have some folks out there that will come forward. Unfortunately, there will be some, as the Member said, who will just not come into the local housing authority. If they don’t come in, then, obviously, come April 1st they face the danger of being evicted. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you for that information, Minister of Housing. My final question is: We do have some tenants that have really high arrears. Is there an action plan to assist those that feel they don’t have a chance to get out of those arrears? Is there a program or some kind of policy in place that will help those that are beyond what they can pay? Thank you.
We do have some tenants out there that have very high public housing arrears. We try and work with them to ensure that they are entering into a repayment plan. We’re not asking them to try and clear off their arrears in a matter of a year, for those with really high arrears. We have some cases where folks have been paying on their arrears what they can afford over a number of years and we’ve had some success stories where they’ve been able to pay those arrears off. We wouldn’t want our tenants feeling that because their arrears are very high, there’s no end in sight. All we’re asking them to do is come into the local housing authority, enter into a repayment plan and honour the agreement that they made with the local housing authority, then their chances of remaining public housing clients is very high. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
