Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I spoke about the CMHC declining fund for the 2,200-or-so public housing units we have across the Territories. Now I have questions for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if the NWT Housing Corporation has developed a strategy to address the CMHC declining fund? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, recognizing the fact that we are losing money every year through the CMHC declining funding, Housing has started the process of identifying ways that we could cut back in our O and M and that’s part of the strategy. We are working on a 20-year capital needs assessment and we’re looking at retrofitting a lot of the units so that they are, we can get a longer life span out of them and we’re also looking at going to a lot of multiplex-type designs, which are less costly to maintain. We recognize the fact that we are declining and it is a great concern to the Housing Corporation. So we are taking steps to address this and meanwhile continuing to lobby the federal government to try and keep the money flowing and seeing what we can do, working with our partners in Nunavut and the Yukon, in addressing this issue with the federal government. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, those are good objectives. I see that the objectives are mostly pertaining to the current inventory. Can the Minister advise me if he has anything in place in the area pertaining to the transfer of any of the public housing units to its clientele? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we’re always looking at ways to sell some of the units to clientele. Over the years I think we’ve sold probably in the neighbourhood of 49. We have 63 that we’ve identified that could be for sale. However, we need to make sure that they have the means to maintain these units, because the last thing that we would like to see is transferring some of these units over to clients who are unable to maintain them and then they in turn would come back to the corporation for funding. That’s what we need to make sure we get away from and not set them up for failure. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I realize that it would take some money to continue to operate a house. It may be easier if there was no mortgage attached to it. Can the Minister tell me, just on a little bit of a different note, what resources have been allocated to achieve these objectives of addressing the CMHC declining fund? Thank you.
Well, our budget has gone up each year, recognizing the fact, again, that the money is declining and, as I pointed out to the Member in response to the first question, we are taking steps to try and cut back on the O and M part of it by improving the quality of our units, so we’d have less O and M funding. As far as the resources go, we are seeing a small increase just about every year, but it’s not quite enough to deal with the money we will be losing. I mean, to date, I think we’ve been out $5.8 million, but by the time the money actually declines I think we’re going to be out $348 million in O and M funding. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister outline for us any initiatives that involve the local housing organizations in the sense that have they engaged the local housing organizations in this initiative?
Mr. Speaker, we’re always engaging with the local housing organizations and listening to what they have, because a lot of them know best what goes on in their community. I mean, they’ve identified some units that they can move and also improving the operation and maintenance of each unit, trying to cut back on the costs. So we are working quite closely with a lot of the LHOs and the district offices to identify ways where we can make some savings, again recognizing the fact that unless we get a change of heart from the federal government, we’re going to continue to have declining funding each and every year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
