Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have questions for the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation. I'd like to ask the Minister if there is any singles housing strategy that has been developed by the NWT Housing Corporation? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Yes, actually we just put out this year a pilot project for single/bachelor fourplexes in the communities of Fort Simpson, Behchoko and Aklavik, and we will be doing an evaluation of those fourplexes to see how they work, and if favourable, we will be moving forward with that.
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister if those units are restricted to single people and how do you prevent couples from moving into those units, because there would be more people they'd have more points? I'd like to know how the Housing Corporation was able to sort out that issue.
Those units are only for single people within the Northwest Territories. In the same manner that we have units that are designated only for seniors we will have units that are designated only for singles.
Mr. Speaker, it's a huge issue in the NWT, especially in the small communities, many singles do not have housing. So if we're now building units that are specific to single people is that program going to be expanded into all communities in the NWT.
That is a really tough question to answer directly and say yes or no. The reality is that we are in the process of doing the engagement survey, we have committed to doing community plans, individual community plans, for each community. If a community states to us that singles in their community is their number one priority, then that's where we'd be focusing our efforts. So it does depend on what the community surveys come back with.
Mr. Speaker, are those units a part of the public housing inventory managed by local housing organization, or are they going to be managed by some other organization in the community?
The units that I've talked about, the pilot project, are actually managed by communities themselves. They are not managed by the housing corporation. As stated before, this is a pilot project, and so we're going to do an analysis to see how they work. After a year and at that point we'll determine whether we continue with that model or if we have to change our model to more accommodate the needs.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
