Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation and following up on my Member’s statement and the need for housing in Yellowknife.
The corporation, to its credit, did a shelter policy review within the last year to two years, and the results of that review were a report, and basically, I believe that that report is a plan for the future for the NWT Housing Corporation. I’d like to ask the Minister, relative to the report that came as a result of the shelter policy review, and in light of the need in Yellowknife for both public housing units and transitional housing, how this plan, in particular, addresses the needs for more public housing units in Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; there was a report done. One of the recommendations that came out of the report, Yellowknife, I think the biggest issue was affordability, and that’s one of the reasons that the Rent Supplement Program came into play.
There is a need for public housing all across the Northwest Territories; Yellowknife and some of the larger centres because they’re market communities, it’s a little harder to get more public housing in there. We do have 311 public housing units in Yellowknife. I think there are 169 of our own, plus we have some lease units, as we do in most communities. But affordability was one of the major issues, according to the report, as far as Yellowknife goes.
Thanks to the Minister for the response. I have to totally agree with him. That’s the point of my statement. Affordability is absolutely an issue. The rental market in Yellowknife is such that people cannot afford to rent in Yellowknife, and we don’t have enough public housing, which would give them some opportunity to lower their rental costs.
I’d like to know from the Minister, in terms of addition of public housing units to communities, I’m sure there’s a priority list. I’d like to know from the Minister where Yellowknife and the addition of public housing units in the city of Yellowknife sit in terms of priorities of adding units to the Housing Corporation stock.
Because of our limited infrastructure budget, we were fortunate. In the last two years we’ve had a huge investment from the federal government. But we’re back to our original number of $17 million. A lot of it’s for public housing replacement units. I can assure the Member that Yellowknife’s very high on the priority. I believe there are about 61 units that may have been built or started in 2012-13, and my understanding is Yellowknife was probably getting about 23 of these units. In some cases we buy units that we can convert into public housing instead of building. That way we get more value for our dollar.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that Yellowknife’s not on the bottom of the list. That’s good to hear.
My other point that I was trying to make, and thus my question to the Minister, has to do with transitional housing and the need for transitional housing here. I’d like to know where that sits in terms of the shelter policy review and the report that came from that. Thank you.
We’ve heard the argument on a number of occasions about Yellowknife being a magnet community. We do have a lot of folks from outside come into Yellowknife. Yellowknife is very fortunate. They have some very good groups here in town that work on these situations. As far as their transitional housing goes, I think they’re in better shape than all of the 32 communities across the Northwest Territories. We just made a sizable contribution to Betty House and we do help with Rockhill with an in-kind donation, plus some money to help with utilities and that. As far as the rest of the Northwest Territories goes, Yellowknife is in very good shape. It could be improved all across the Northwest Territories, not only the capital. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am really glad the Minister recognizes that there’s room for improvement. I have to say to the Minister that he may consider Yellowknife to be in good shape, but to have 150 or more people on a waiting list for transition housing is not good shape, in my mind.
Members are often asking Ministers to visit their community and talk to people. I’d like to know from the Minister if he’d be willing to sit down with our local authorities, non-government organizations, who do provide transition housing, and talk to them and work with them for solutions. Thank you.
I would be glad to visit the Member’s constituency and talk to some of the NGOs there, as I would extend that invitation to all Members here, because it helps us as a corporation to do our job better with some planning, so we can hear from folks out in the communities who have to deal with some of the situations they find themselves in. I will commit to the Member, if we can line up a meeting, I’d be happy to attend. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
