Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation some questions in regard to my Member’s statement. I was speaking about that I am pleased that there is a nice, strong housing program in Fort Liard. The residents are very pleased to see all of these units coming up, but during my last visit, the concern was that, okay, we have lots of people in arrears. Have they got active clients for these new homeownership homes in Fort Liard? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We currently have 12 applications for the homeownership units in Fort Liard. We are just doing another intake as we speak. We will be processing the applicants and hopefully finding some that are qualified for homeownership. Thank you.
As I said in my Member’s statement, the concern in Fort Liard is actually we would like to see more public housing units. I know that we are not building those, but as a suggestion and perhaps as part of the strategy for delivering homes in Fort Liard, do we have the ability to convert these homeownership homes should they continue to remain vacant? There are already three of them boarded up there, Mr. Speaker, due to the lack of clients. Can we convert these to public housing units? Thank you.
The boarded up units are ones that there is an issue going on with those. I am not at liberty to speak about them right now. If there are no clients identified for some of the homeownership units, I can tell the Member there are six public housing units that will be going up in Fort Liard too. If there are no clients for the homeownership units, then we will need to have that discussion with the Housing Corporation and see how best we can put people in the units. Thank you.
That is the kind of flexibility that we need with the NWT Housing Program. Fort Liard is a community of about 500 people. There is overcrowding. There are homes with about two or three families. They are waiting for these units. My issue is that a lot of people do have arrears, Mr. Speaker. Some of them are decades old, from some old programming, but it still remains on the books. I would like to ask the Minister, when they come across this issue, can they develop a strategy to address this so that we get people into houses and not let an old arrear bill be a hindrance to access our affordable and accessible program? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we understand the Member’s concern; it has been a concern raised by many Members before. We are trying to come up with and working on a strategy to work with clients to address some of the arrears and they can then qualify for some of the housing programs. One thing we want to be sure is that we need to have the engagement of the clients to come up with a repayment plan that is workable for them and workable for the Housing Corporation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Does the Minister or does the NWT Housing Corporation have the ability to convert these homeownership houses over to public housing if there is an opportunity? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we are trying to be as flexible as possible in putting people in units. These are homeownership units. If clients cannot be found and if every avenue is exhausted, then we will need to have that discussion as to what to do with the units. If there are some creative ways we can work to get people in the unit, then obviously we’d be more willing to have a look at that and work with the Member.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
