Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about return of the public housing rental subsidy to the local housing organizations. I would like to ask the Minister of Housing about the implementation date. I think there was June 1st. Is the target on track and will they be able to meet that implementation date? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can assure the Member and all Members of this House that the implementation date is June 1st. We are on target to meet that. All LHOs have received the training that they need to implement the PHRS, so it is on track for June 1st. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, does the department anticipate any challenges for the tenants as the transfer back to the local housing organization? I know it took several months when we went to ECE. What kind of strategy or communications plan do they have to ensure that all the tenants do not fall off track and make the transition as seamless as possible? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have communicated our plan to the LHOs and to the tenants. There is also a public campaign that is going to be starting, advising them that as of June 1st they will be able to get their rental assessments done by the local housing authorities. We don’t anticipate much of a transition challenge right now because, as we all know, they were doing it quite seamlessly before and I think with the additional training that they have received, it should be a seamless transition. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I think that when the program went to ECE there were additional resources given to ECE. Is there some similar plan to return extra resources to the Housing Corporation as to uptake the program once again? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, we are in discussions with ECE on that particular part of it. Those discussions are all ongoing. We are hoping to come up with a resolution quite soon. We didn’t want that to delay our implementation of the June 1st start-up date so we are continuing with that and we continue to have discussions with ECE on the rest of it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Will the maximum rents be looked at at this time during the transition phase? Will there be any adjustments made to the amount that’s being charged as rent? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. As of the implementation date, we are using the existing rent scales. However, it is our plan to review the whole rent scale and when the whole transfer is complete April 1st of next year, then we’re looking at having some changes that may be needed to the rent scale. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
