Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of the Housing Corporation in terms of working with the home ownership of the housing in my region. We seem to be running into a lot of issues with land tenure on the Commissioner’s lots and sometimes that prevents applications from being looked at or being seriously considered for approval. I want to ask the Minister if, in his strategy, would there be some movement in terms of how do we deal with the land tenure issue, especially for the elders in my communities.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Land tenure does sometimes get to be a hindrance as to people’s ability to access some of our programs. However, we’ve been very fortunate lately that we’ve been working with a lot of the band communities and they’re making band land available to their constituents so that they’re able to access the home ownership programs, which helps the Housing Corporation quite a bit, but more importantly, it helps the residents of the community quite a bit because they will be assured they have land tenure and they’re able to put their house on it.
As far as Commissioner’s land goes, I mean, there’s a process where they can apply for the purchase of Commissioner’s land within the community and it’s one that would go through the proper process and then they’d be able to purchase the land if it’s available for sale. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, sometimes these seniors and these elders that do have land in the community and sometimes when they make an application they find out that they owe money on this land here and sometimes that prevents them from being eligible for an application to fix up their houses there. I want to ask the Minister: is his department looking at how do we look at issues around arrears or outstanding bills that elders have without them knowing and, of course, they need their houses fixed and it stops them from being repaired?
Mr. Speaker, we are coming forward with a slight change in policy to address some of the Member’s and other Members’ concerns. It is one that we would have to bring before committee and have the discussion with committee, but we do recognize that it has been a problem across the Northwest Territories and we’re taking the necessary steps to do what we can to help homeowners access some of the programs we offer. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, certainly I look forward to the new policy. I’m so happy I just about choked on it here, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to hear what the Minister has said. I wanted to ask the Minister, there are 600 families in the Sahtu and 330 families make less than $75,000. I want to ask the Minister in regards to the public housing units in the Sahtu. Will the Minister also be coming forward in terms of rent scale adjustments so that families do have an equal chance to make it in society in terms of adjusting their rents that is liveable in the public housing units?
Mr. Speaker, we are, as Members know, reviewing the rent scale right now. The work is still ongoing. We are hoping that we are able to come forward soon with some recommendations and a discussion again with committee. But as to the number that the Member mentioned, the amount of money that is made in communities, these are the type of people that we want to graduate out of public housing and into the home ownership side and we are doing what we can as a corporation to try and accommodate them and try to get them into home ownership.
I believe we have made a lot of progress in the last little while. We have been able to see more and more people getting into home ownership and with some of the gap analysis that we are using, we are able to get some of those that are just slightly over the threshold into home ownership. I think there have been some innovative solutions put forward here. I think we are seeing more and more people get into home ownership. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In his strategy, is the Minister considering looking at a communication strategy also? Mr. Speaker, there is an elder in Fort Good Hope that somehow we missed this elder here in terms of communicating between the elder and the Housing Corporation. This elder had his house frozen up for over a month here and nothing happened in terms of Housing looking after him. He was in the bush. The technical advisor was on holidays. Just nothing happened to help this elder here. Now it is finally being looked at and still not a done deal. Is the Minister looking at the communication strategy to work with elders such as this kind of incident?
Mr. Speaker, if it was a home ownership issue, then it would be the homeowner’s responsibility to ensure somebody is watching over his house. Having said that, though, we still continue to try and work with folks that find themselves in situations like this, to see if there are ways that we can assist them. At the end of the day, the ultimate responsibility I would think would have to be on the homeowner to ensure their place or units don’t freeze up. In the cases where it does happen, we do what we can to work with these folks to try and repair some of the problems. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
