Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Housing. I know he’s fielding a lot of questions here today. It’s just in regard to the address that we heard last week in the House and there was mention of the $1.2 million rent supplement for private rentals, and as some of my colleagues mentioned today, the increased costs of living in our communities, and they’re only going to go higher. Some of my colleagues in the past have talked about the working poor. My question today is with this rent supplement of $1.2 million, when will this program become available to residents of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister responsible for NWT Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our discussions across the Northwest Territories during the very extensive consultation process, it was pointed out that there was need to assist, as the Member pointed out, the working poor. We have a lot of people that are just starting in the workforce; we have a lot of people coming out of school going into the workforce. So we felt that they needed a bit of help for the first couple of years and then after that they would either graduate into home ownership or be able to afford private market housing. So we designed a program called the Rent Supplement Program and the launch date is expected to be September 1st of this year. Thank you.
Thank you. My second question on this is pending the applications that the department receives for assistance in this area, is he willing to amend the policy to increase more funding across the Northwest Territories in future years? Thank you.
Thank you. This is very early in the process, so we’re not sure what kind of uptake we’re going to have on this. We’re looking at possibly 175 across the Northwest Territories initially, graduating them into quarterly sections. So there will be a continuous intake instead of doing all of them the first quarter and then having nothing left over for the rest of the year. So the initial plan is to try and assist at least 175 by quarterly installments. Thank you.
Thank you. In terms of getting this information out to the general public, does the Minister or the department have a marketing strategy to let people in the communities know that this program is available for them to access, and what is that marketing strategy? We only have pretty well the summer to get that done. So over the next three months does he have a marketing strategy to let the public know? Thank you.
Thank you. There have been a lot of changes in the Housing Corporation with the shelter policy review, a lot of proposed changes. We have a very extensive communication plan that we’re planning on rolling out very soon here to make the public out there aware of all of the programs and some of the changes that are going on within the NWT Housing Corp. So we’re hoping to roll that out fairly soon, and get the information out, and be on the website and a fairly extensive communication plan. I’d be willing to sit down with the Member or Members and share that with them. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One final question in regard to this new funding. In some of the communities what we are seeing is much like public housing. We do have a lot of people staying in the same house. With some of our professionals and young professionals out there that are trying to take care of their debts from school, we do see multiple people living in the same house to decrease their debts. With this program coming out, there’s a possibility that they might take advantage of this program where they can get supplemented for their rent, which will even decrease their lower costs. How is the Minister going to regulate those kinds of applications so that the people who really need them get this program for them and not people who are looking to take advantage of the program? How is he going to regulate this? Thank you.
Thank you. There is always a danger that there are going to be some people that try to take advantage of some of the programs we have to offer. We have to do our part to ensure that this is distributed fairly and to those that are most in need. I think in such small jurisdictions in the Northwest Territories, working with the communities we all know the people in the communities that are in most need, those that are trying to get a good start in life. We feel that this is going to give them that good start, and like I said before, they can either graduate into regular market housing or they can graduate into home ownership, which we are intent. But we feel this is an excellent program that’s geared towards giving these people a good start and not have to be so dependent on the government right off the bat. So this is a very good program and the Member makes a good point. We have to monitor this very closely to ensure that those that need it are the ones that are using it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
