Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the possibility of the homeless people in the Sahtu communities and other communities who face the issue of the eviction notices and termination of public housing units. This is all due to a number of attempts to collect arrears payments to the units. I want to ask the Minister, in his review of the Shelter Policy for the NWT Housing Corporation, if there is going to be a policy where tenants like these that are very high in arrears can have some other options such as working off their arrears or looking at some garnishment for payment to make towards the arrears or volunteering their services in a monetary amount to work off. If there is anything that would keep them from being evicted and keep them in the house and learning also at the same time what it takes to maintain a public housing unit.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, first of all, the obvious one is pay your rent and you won’t be evicted. We’ve come to cases where folks have received termination notices and they need to work with the LHO. The LHO tries to work with them. The whole eviction process is almost a year-long process and it comes to a point where eviction is the last option. We’ve had a few cases of those. It’s not something that we like to do. We want to be able to work with the tenants.
I can point out to the Member again, and I have said in this House, we’ve seen a great improvement in the public engaging with their LHOs and trying to enter into repayment plans. Not only entering into them but also honouring the commitment they made, which I think is the most important first step.
I have some information, thanks to the Minister, that he passed on to me. That’s what I want to look at in terms of one of my communities, where if a number of people do not do anything, they will be asked to leave their public housing units; a total of 10 adults, not counting the children. I want to ask the Minister in this regard, we will have a homeless problem in Deline. Can the Minister in any way, through his leadership and direction, look at putting a little more emphasis and resources to working with these people? There are 10 adults that need to see where they’re going to be housed. Right now they’re going to be in the warehouses or tents. I know it’s an effort between two parties. What else can we do to keep them in their units? Is there anything possible for them?
As I said earlier, we give them every opportunity to try and rectify the situations that some of them find themselves in. I can point out to the Member that in the community that he mentioned, the overall collection went from a very low number to over 100 percent now; the collection rate. I understand that we’ve had some of these issues in the past and I think the folks there are getting the message, which is encouraging to the Housing Corporation and encouraging to the LHO, because they’re able to use that money now to do some much needed repairs in the communities.
We’ve had other places where they’ve tried to come up with some innovative solutions on how people can work off. We’re always willing to listen, but it has to be something that benefits both the tenants and the LHOs. We’re always willing to listen to any kind of new initiative. We’ve seen a few of them in the past that have worked. One in one of the Beaufort-Delta communities has worked quite well. There’s a lot of work to it. As I said, we’re always looking to or are willing to listen to any kind of initiatives out there.
It’s encouraging to hear the Minister say that he’s willing to listen and work on some of the innovative solutions. I want to ask the Minister in regard to the eviction list in one of my communities. Is this something that the Minister can possibly look at implementing with Housing as policy? Right now it’s at discretion. If we had a policy that would give more direction to the LHOs to say now we can look at another avenue to have people work on their issues and what it means to be a homeowner or to live in a public housing unit, it will help them in terms of being more independent.
At the end of the day, it is our goal to see our tenants become more independent and honour the commitments that they’ve made. There’s also, and I’ve stated in the House in the past, an appeals process that we’re hoping to roll out here fairly soon. I won’t as a rule try and dictate to the LHOs what they do. They make their own policies. They’re the ones that actually came to us with some of the ideas they’ve had which they figure work quite well in their communities.
There’s an appeals process that we’re hoping to roll out here. Tenants will have the opportunity, if they feel that the board didn’t follow policy and procedure, then the appeal process is another avenue. We’re obviously trying to work with the tenants to give them another avenue to appeal decisions that they feel are unfair.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly hope that the LHO board clearly hears what the Minister has said. The board is the boss, and their comment that we have to take instructions from the district office is wiped out.
I want to ask the Minister, when he looks within solutions, can the Minister look at the concept of a community rental, community tenant/community liaison person for the housing that could help the tenants and the Housing Corporation so they can work together daily, monthly, weekly, biweekly, so they can help them with the arrears? Certainly that’s what we want to do and we need to work with them. I would ask the Minister if he would consider that possibility.
Most LHOs have tenant relations officers that work with the tenants and bring them up to date on their rental arrears and how they can best address them. They’re called tenant relations officers and they work closely with the tenants.
As far as the district office, I mean, the district offices usually work very closely with LHOs and they give them some guidance and direction. They’re just another sounding board for the LHOs.
We want to ensure that from headquarters right down to the LHOs all policies and procedures are followed very closely, because it won’t work very good if we start doing one-offs and going against policies and procedures as being laid out in the Assemblies before us.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
