Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My oral questions will be directed to the Minister of the Housing Corporation, which I’m sure he’s completely surprised. I will be following up on my Member’s statement as I talked about the affordability issue and adequacy issue in my Member’s statement.
Can the Minister explain what actions are being taken about the affordability challenge in Yellowknife?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
The delivery of public housing in Yellowknife is one that goes hand in hand with the delivery of public housing across the Northwest Territories. As far as the affordability in Yellowknife, they have a very vibrant housing market here and there’s an ability that’s not available in a lot of the smaller communities to access some of the market housing in Yellowknife.
Clearly a one-size policy doesn’t fit anybody across the North. That approach certainly hasn’t addressed the adequacy issue. As I said in my Member’s statement, 928 people in Yellowknife alone, that’s 928 families alone are paying over 30 percent of their gross income on fixed expenses. I still haven’t heard how the Minister is addressing the affordability challenges in Yellowknife.
I’m not sure if the Member is referencing 930 that are paying 30 percent in market housing or public housing. I don’t believe we have that many public housing units in Yellowknife. Are we talking homeownership? Private homes financed through the bank? If the Member would clarify his question, I’d be prepared to give him an answer.
For clarification, I was referring to the Housing Needs Survey.
The Housing Needs Survey encompasses all aspects of housing in each community. Obviously, Yellowknife has an advantage over some of the other communities where the corporation is able to get into rent supp agreements with a lot of private landlords. Obviously, if there is a public housing shortage in Yellowknife, it is one that as a corporation we’ll have to address and see about getting public housing units into the capital. As well as looking across the Northwest Territories trying to get public housing into a lot of the other communities, because if you look at it percentage-wise, their needs are probably a lot higher than Yellowknife. Numbers-wise, Yellowknife is going to have the higher number.
I thank the Minister and I will agree that the statistics speak for themselves. It’s a matter of how you put them in order. With 928 households through the housing survey still in need -- and he may want to suggest they have other options -- but with almost a zero percent vacancy rate in Yellowknife, options are few and far between. If the Minister is interested in advice -- and he’s gone through several Members today and it sounds like he’s taking advice today -- I would highlight the fact that one multi-family unit being built in Yellowknife does not address the affordability and suitability issue.
Has the Minister considered or entertained the concept of rent supps which would directly go to households in need? As I pointed out, we have over 900 people who are paying over 30 percent of their gross income on fixed expenses. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’d have to check on the numbers. As far as I know, in the past few years Yellowknife has been fortunate to get a few more public housing units. As far as rent supps go, us subsidizing people to stay in private accommodation, when I speak of the rent supps, I’m talking about the ones that are rented to the LHOs and they administer them. As far as the rent supps go, I mean, 932, if we were to assist a portion of those, I mean, this would be a huge investment on the part of the NWT Housing Corporation. It’s something that we’d have to look at very carefully, because we don’t want to take away from the rest of the Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With capital money we’re investing in this capital budget, I think the money could go a lot further on a short-term investment immediately helping some of those 928 families in need. May I remind the Minister that we have approximately 289 units in public housing and the fact is that even if we bring in through a retrofit process of 25 retrofits this capital budget, it’s just a shell game, because you’re working on fixing 25 but you have to take 25 off the market. So you really haven’t changed the adequacy and affordability issue.
Mr. Speaker, that said, would the Minister commit to this House that he will re-evaluate those capital dollars so that money can be redirected to rent supps on a short-term basis, as I said earlier, that will immediately help people? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we’ve got 293 public housing units in Yellowknife, we’ve got 105 homeownership units and we have about 360 third-party projects. So to me that shows that the Housing Corporation is making a significant investment in the capital. And just to clarify, if we’re fixing up 25 units, we don’t have to take 25 units out of stock. It’s just the Public Housing Replacement Program. If we’re replacing public housing units, then we have to look at ways of taking some units off the backend because of declining funding. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
