Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister of Housing with regard to his Minister’s statement that he gave earlier today. Before I begin I just want to commend all the hard work that the department of housing has been doing with the Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition and the creation of the Betty House. However, you have to understand that homelessness is more than a Yellowknife issue; we see it in all our communities. We see it more in the regional centres. I want to ask the Minister what work has been done in the regional centres such as Inuvik, Hay River, Fort Smith and Fort Simpson to deal with the homelessness issues that are arising in those communities as well.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the communities themselves, they have very active groups that try and look after the homelessness issue in their communities. We would work with these communities. The one in Yellowknife here, most of all we helped with the infrastructure. Then the groups are usually responsible for the operation of facilities. If there are groups out there that have ideas and plans and want to sit down with the Housing Corporation, we’re always more than willing to listen to any plans that are out there. As far as funding the O and M on a lot of the shelters, we’re not in a position to do that. We usually help with the infrastructure.
Thanks to the Minister for his comments. I’d like to ask the Minister, has the department of housing taken the initiative to speak with these interested groups in the regions and given them advice and some support and motivation to move to this next step of building the infrastructure in these communities so our people who are in dire straits and on the streets have a place to go.
We don’t go out and solicit these groups and see if they need our assistance. In many cases the groups will come and initiate the conversation with the Housing Corporation. Then again we would be willing to listen. This would be one that’s driven by the particular groups in the community. If they drive it, then it has a chance for success, rather than having Housing drive it where the chance of success is a little lesser. Groups like this that drive these initiatives in the community, that’s when it starts to work.
In terms of the contribution that was given to the Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition of $2.3 million that he had stated earlier, it is quite a bit of money and I know it will go to a good use. As the contribution as such, would the department be looking at developing some kind of contribution to get these groups started up into developing a plan that can eventually lead to these kinds of infrastructures such as the Betty House? If there is already a contribution program in place, can the Minister describe what that contribution is?
I’m unaware of any contribution program that’s already in place. It’s something that obviously if the groups come forward, we would be looking at it on a case-by-case basis. It’s not like we would be budgeting money every year to make contributions towards infrastructure. We would have to wait for the groups to approach us and then we would see if it fits within our budget before we decide on making any kind of contribution.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister please provide me with information on any of these groups? Have any of these groups approached his department to seek this kind of funding?
As far as I know, we’ve had no groups come forward or approach the NWT Housing Corporation; however, I could be wrong. I would have to confirm that and relay that on to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
