Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of the Housing Corporation. Over the last number of months and years, actually years, I received a number of complaints and inquiries from constituents who have secured employment recently and already live in social housing units, or from constituents who have jobs and only recently managed to get a social housing unit. Many are single people just starting out, single parents or families with young children. The problem is that as soon as they get a job or those who have jobs move into social housing, they are assessed the maximum rent that the program follows.
My question is to the Minister of Housing. When we impose the rent increases for people living in social housing who manage to get a job, it may be counterproductive encouraging people to be self-reliant. Can the Minister tell this Assembly when he’ll release the rental review report and get some good discussions from Members on this side on how we’re going to deal with this issue?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are planning on undertaking a review of the rent scale. I’ve pointed that out before. We are looking to come to committee with the results. We are planning on having it ready for review by the end of this fiscal year.
I look forward to the review of the rent scale report by the end of this fiscal year. Will the Minister then look at if the discussion should come well within the committees and have some good discussions to look at this problem? Will he come forward with bringing it to Cabinet to implement what recommendations we have that will support families and single parents in small communities?
First of all I have to clarify. I said fiscal year, but it was the upcoming fiscal year and not the end of this particular fiscal year. So the 2010-2011 fiscal year. I apologize for that.
It is a concern that we have heard far and wide, is the rent people are being charged once they’ve gained employment. We always want to make sure that if we’re housing people, we try and work out the Homeownership Program so a lot of these people can graduate into the Homeownership Program. Housing tries very hard to make sure all the tenants are adequately housed and, with the review of the rent scale, we’re looking to make some improvements and listen to what we’ve been hearing from the Members in the Legislative Assembly.
Thank you for the clarification of the fiscal years. In saying that, that is quite a length of time between now and the years that the Minister quoted. I guess this is an issue that will be out there a bit. How do we deal with this issue? Because I think this issue is pressing. How do we look at issues that we can support families today who want to be productive people in their communities, yet at the same time this issue here of assessing the maximum rent when they’re still over their heads for them being contributors to the people in their communities?
We try very hard to make sure that all the people are adequately housed. There are 19 tenants across the Northwest Territories out of 2,400 public housing units that are paying maximum rent. That’s a good number. These are the folks we tried to design the Homeownership Program for so that they could graduate from public housing into home ownership. We’re making every attempt to make sure that we work with these people, because we hear the argument that sometimes the rent is too high and it’s a detriment to getting a job. We don’t want to be able to hear those arguments anymore.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you. I wouldn’t mind having a list of these 19 people who are paying the maximum rent, because I’ve been hearing that as soon as they get a job in my riding, that the rent goes right up. It discourages people from working and to be in social housing. I know they want to be in these units and hopefully they can apply and be successful in these applications. I have a hard time in this. I’m here to say this is something that seems like it’s not taken very seriously by the departments here.
I’d like to know how we look at this issue. Can I get a list of the 19 tenants?
I’m not going to be able to provide the Member with the names of these 19 tenants. I can provide some of the regions that they’re in, but as far as names go with the information and everything, we have to be careful. We have to understand that maximum rent in the communities could be as high as $2,300, but that doesn’t mean that somebody who has a job is going to pay the $2,300. It’s based on the income that they’re making. I will commit to the Member that I’ll get him some information and sit down with him.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
