Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Rental arrears in public housing is a chronic problem for the Government of the Northwest Territories. When we reviewed the main estimates earlier this year, average rent collection was only 76 percent at a debt balance of $13 million outstanding. Collection needs to be at 90 percent in order to maintain the LHO, and that’s from the Minister as well as the department, Mr. Speaker. Clearly, we need action on these rental collections and certainly the arrears. However, if you think that’s bad, Mr. Speaker, well, mortgage collection rates are at 40 percent, so accountability clearly isn’t a concern for anyone over there.
We constantly hear the same response from the Housing Corporation on this issue: the Corporation continues its efforts to increase rent collection or mortgage collection; the Corporation works closely with the clients and LHOs; we promise that the situation is improving. But, Mr. Speaker, rent collection is still well below 90 percent in many LHOs; we’re still not hearing about a real action plan to increase rent collection. And speaking of action plans, the Auditor General recommended that the Housing Corporation jointly develop an action plan with each LHO that has difficulty collecting 90 percent of its rent. That was in 2008. Again, accountability seems to be missing here, Mr. Speaker.
The Housing Corporation has tried to make payment simple for clients. Yes, many housing tenants are good tenants and they do pay their rent on time. But 76 percent is not enough to sustain the Housing Program, Mr. Speaker. Why does that seem to bother people in the sense that they can’t get past that? Why does the department of housing not want to address it?
We need a plan to target the real cause of these non-payment issues, Mr. Speaker, the inconvenient truths under the shadow or dark cloud of public housing.
Mr. Speaker, in my view, there has been very little done to address these problems of arrears in the rent and mortgages over this term other than rhetoric and a little re-jigging of the numbers, so I’m doubtful at this point if we will ever see much accomplished or anything real truly realized.
Mr. Speaker, if the department truly is listening and wants to advance this issue to some useful practical solution, then what about equalizing payments over a whole year? Mr. Speaker, we could term the payments over a full year reflective of what true annual income is, and then we could work with people who get part-time jobs so they don’t get the shocks of high rent and then the re-jigging. It would save a lot of time for the LHO and it would save a lot of stress from those clients in subsidized housing.
Mr. Speaker, later today I will have questions for the Minister responsible for Housing and hopefully we will find a better solution for this particular problem. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
