Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not surprisingly, my questions are for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, and you can let the Minister know that he’s almost done.
I mentioned in my Member’s statement the Auditor General’s report, and in particular, item number 59 from that report is a recommendation that states that the corporation should finalize its strategic plan as soon as possible. It goes on to say that part of the plan should be: “incorporate all the various elements of housing into a comprehensive northern Housing Strategy.” The management’s response did not indicate that a strategy was forthcoming, so I have a few questions for the Minister.
I would like to know if the NWT Housing Corporation is acting on the Auditor General’s recommendation and, if so, what is the status of the strategy for the NWT Housing Corporation? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This would fit into the overall Shelter Policy we’re developing right now and this would look at all aspects of delivery of housing across the Northwest Territories. The plan is to develop a policy in the next fiscal year. We see this as a bit of a way forward document to deal with a lot of the issues regarding housing in the Northwest Territories.
Thanks to the Minister. The Minister mentions the Shelter Policy that’s being developed. I also mentioned in my statement that there were two commitments from the Minister in the last eight months or so. One was to look at rent scales and one was to look at programs. I don’t hear in the answer today, and I didn’t hear in the answers from previous Hansard, that the Housing Corporation is going to look at everything with the Housing Corporation, polices, procedures, guidelines, everything that affects how housing is given out, how it is managed and administered. Could I get from the Minister, apart from the Shelter Policy, is there any intent on the part of the Housing Corporation to do a comprehensive northern housing policy review? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we see the Shelter Policy as doing an overall territorial housing review on all the different aspects of housing. As I mentioned a couple of times, we are actually doing a rent scale review. We are doing an evaluation of the whole Housing Choices program and those are just a couple of components. We see the Shelter Policy as an overall review on a go-forward basis on the delivery of anything housing in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard many comments from Members, as we have gone through our statements and questions today, about things that are not working relative to the way the Housing Corporation operates and the relationships between the corporation and the people that are in housing, things like very large arrears, things like housing suitability in terms of number of bedrooms where you don’t have three bedrooms when you get your kids back. It doesn’t sound to me like a Shelter Policy is going to encompass the actual on-the-ground management of some of these guidelines. Could I get a better explanation from the Minister of what exactly the Shelter Policy entails? Does it go to those kinds of details to which I am referring? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Shelter Policy is going to be a component of the overall social policy framework. It will outline our housing responses to specific community-inclined groups. It is going to encompass anything to do with housing. This is what we see as a bit of an operating manual for the future of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, and how we can best respond to all the concerns that are raised by Members and by the public, and a few of the issues that the Member raised specifically will be ones, obviously, that will be part of the whole overall policy. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I certainly look forward to seeing that Shelter Policy. If it is going to include the detail to which the Minister is referring, then it will be a valuable document and it will hopefully remove many of the roadblocks that our residents are encountering in regards to their housing.
I would like to ask the Minister if he can tell me when that Shelter Policy in all its detail will be available. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we are just in the process of developing the framework for it now. It is a comprehensive piece of work and it is going to take a lot of research. My best guess would be that may be something that is ready for the beginning of the 17th Assembly. There is a lot of work.
We obviously have heard a lot of issues concerning housing today, and not just today but every day in all of the communities we go to. We have to be sure. We have heard from Members on what they thought of the different policies, how certain things didn’t work and we want to make sure that we get a policy in place that answers and deals with all of the questions that the Members have raised. We want to make sure that this is one that is going to be done absolutely right before we even release it. Thank you.
