Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I have some additional questions for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. I appreciate her offer to brief this side of the House on the plan with respect to housing the members of the RCMP and in which communities. I guess my more general question on this, at this point, is: What is the benefit to the NWT Housing Corporation of taking on the provision of housing to members of the RCMP? Thank you.
Masi. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As previously stated in my answers, the benefit of the Housing Corporation taking on this initiative is that we will retain RCMP officers within the communities and we can use the market rent that we will be charging them to subsidize the operating maintenance costs to the public housing considering that the CMHC funding will be dissolving. Thank you.
Thank you to the Minister for that. Could the Minister elaborate on the additional revenue that will be realized through the provision of this housing? To what extent will it subsidize public housing in those same communities?
Currently, it costs about $18,000 to $20,000 a year to provide the operating and maintenance provision for public housing. For every unit that we rent out, we would be able to support that cost.
I am looking forward to some additional detail on that, especially as it relates to which communities the housing is going to be provided in. The Housing Corporation staff have said that there will be absolutely no effect of the provision of housing to the RCMP on the current waiting list for social housing. Can she confirm that that is the case?
As stated earlier, the initiative is not to displace public housing. It is a revenue source to be able to supplement the public housing. I also can give you some information on the federal units that the RCMP had. At this point, the federal government is saying that they’re beyond repair for them to make them financially viable. They will be offering them out to market. If they are not taken up by the market within the communities, then they’ll send them to negotiations with the Housing Corporation.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
