Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by honourable Member Dave Krutko of Mackenzie Delta, the Transfer of Responsibility for Social Housing motion:
WHEREAS the responsibility for the administration of the Public Housing Rental Subsidy was moved to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, from the N.W.T. Housing Corporation, effective April 2, 2005;
AND WHEREAS over the past three years this program transfer has negatively impacted the residents of the Northwest Territories who live in social housing by unnecessarily complicating what was a simple process administered by the local housing organization;
AND WHEREAS one of the unforeseen consequences of this poorly conceived and communicated program transfer has been an increase to the number of households that are in arrears with their local housing organizations;
AND WHEREAS these arrears have endangered the financial viability of some local housing authorities and have made it difficult for them to find the necessary funding to effect repairs of public housing stocks;
AND WHEREAS these same local housing organizations and N.W.T. Housing Corporation have demonstrated their capacity and competence in administering social housing and in dealing with tenants in social housing in a caring and professional manner;
AND WHEREAS during the election campaign, the majority of voter concerns expressed to Members centered on the delivery of social housing and problems encountered since the program transfer to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment;
AND WHEREAS the same material facts that led the 15th Assembly to adopt Motion 10-15(5) on November 1, 2006, directing the government to return responsibility for administering the Public Housing Rental Subsidy to the N.W.T. Housing Corporation and its local housing organizations still exist;
NOW THEREFORE I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the responsibility for the administration of social housing be once again placed under the control of the N.W.T. Housing Corporation;
AND FURTHER, in keeping with the concept of centralizing subsidy programs, that the responsibility for determining the methodology for calculating social housing subsidies be retained by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment;
AND FURTHERMORE that this Legislative Assembly recommends the government provide a response for this Motion within 120 days.
Motion is on the floor. Motion is in order. To the motion.
As indicated in the motion itself, many of the constituents that I represent — and speaking with other colleagues on this side of the House — have expressed a concern over the transfer that occurred last year of the Public Subsidy Program from the Housing Corporation to the EC&E.
It has caused many, many hardships over the past couple of years since that transfer. One of the things that I’ve heard time and time again is that it’s just not working. It’s just not working. And even to this date, we’ve spoken about it with the Minister, and we’ve spoken about in our committee system. They keep saying that it’s growing pains, it’s growing pains, but Mr. Speaker, it has been two years of growing pains, and I don’t want our people to suffer any more.
What I would like to do is initiate this change back to the way the programming was. Some of the negative effects that have happened, I have spoken about it before already in this House. Particularly, people are being evicted on a more frequent basis.
I’m getting many inquiries. In fact, the worstcase scenario happened in one of my communities of Fort Liard. A whole family was thrown out because they weren’t meeting the rent scale, but it was only for $1,000. I still think that was a misapplication of our rules and guidelines. Just because the programming has growing pains, our people are suffering. This is just one instance of it.
Over time I’ve been monitoring this, and I really spoke against it in the last Assembly, about transferring it over. I didn’t think it was the best thing to do, because once we’d transferred to the Subsidy Program in EC&E, it is under more severe scrutiny, and there are people — hardworking people — who made their monthly rent. Once we made the transfer to the EC&E, we’ve changed a whole bunch of things. We changed rental scale, so a house they were paying at a more comfortable rate for their salary, only $400 or $500 a month, got bumped up immediately to $1,500, and immediately many, many people went into arrears overnight in the transition stages. Many people were in arrears. Good, hardworking people who had never been in arrears in their life, and actually had never needed government help, now had to go to see the EC&E and put themselves through the ordeal of applying for income support. It’s kind of a blow to self-esteem for hardworking families who had always made their payments.
Now, it is my belief that we’ve created a whole new segment of people who are in arrears that’s creating a whole new different level of needs and concerns in our communities that wasn’t there before, Mr. Speaker. So by transferring the responsibility of social housing back to the Housing Corporation where it began…. It was a much easier system to deliver to our people. People understood it, and now with two different locations, it’s a lot more confusing. Even two years later, Mr. Speaker, it’s still confusing to residents and constituents and clients who use our public housing.
So with that, those are my initial thoughts on this motion. I really do want to see this change initiated that transfers our housing back. I believe it will better serve our constituents with respect to this change.
Just in closing, too, I do believe it was a mistake that this House made. It’s okay to correct mistakes. It’s okay to say that we’re wrong; we made a mistake. In this case I believe that we did. I believe that we should return social housing back to the ministry responsible for the Housing Corporation.
Mahsi cho.
I support the motion that’s before us today, like I supported the motion that the last Assembly passed in this House calling on the government to return social housing policy and the money back to the Housing Corporation where it belongs.
I’ve got constituents, too, who have a great deal of concern. I know my colleague Mr. Menicoche outlined some of them. The assessments are taking too long.
As I’ve said before, one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen, being a Member of this House, is how this all happened in the first place. I think what happened was the Minister went to an FPT meeting, saw some of the provinces going to the one-service delivery model — Ontario, New Brunswick — came back to the Northwest Territories and said, “Hey, we can do that here.” So they started on a course to pull the money out of the Housing Corporation and it was pulled. I don’t know if the Housing Corporation necessarily agreed with having that money pulled at the time, but it happened. We even went to the extent….
There was partial-year funding in a sup that Members on this side of the House pulled out of a Supplementary Appropriation. It was $440,000 at the time. That didn’t send the message; the government was still intent on hiring what ended up being twelve people to deliver the same program that was being delivered at the Housing Corporation, so it’s costing the government an additional…. Not only is it not serving the needs of our residents, it’s costing us an additional $1.5 million to administer every year.
So, Mr. Speaker, again, I think…. And not only that cost, but just recently we were briefed by EC&E on how they’re trying to massage this and trying to make it work. There’s a lot of time, effort and money being spent on consultations, going around talking to people…. Listen, it doesn’t work. What else do you have to know? It doesn’t work, Mr. Speaker, and it needs to go back to the Housing Corporation, where our residents can have some peace of mind that assessments are going to be done in a timely fashion and that things are going to be done appropriately. Right now, that peace of mind is not with our residents. Let’s take the program and put it back where it belongs.
Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I support this motion. I supported the last.... Actually I moved the last motion that came out in this respect. Having worked in local housing authorities for 23 years, I’ve seen firsthand all the people that would come in, take care of their assessment and be out the door. I think they were doing a fine job looking after it, and doing it with the resources and staff they had. There was a bit of a peak time, when for a few days you’d have everyone come in.
I don’t know what more we have to do, Mr. Speaker. People are bringing their concerns to us, yet after two years…. That’s why we continue to raise the issue. If it wasn’t an issue for the people, then it wouldn’t be an issue for us. Because they’re telling us all the time that this thing is not working, we have to listen to what they’re saying and what they’re asking.
In one of our Member’s Conduct Guidelines, there was a line in there that said: “Hear the voice of our people.” That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re listening to what they’re telling us; they’re telling us it’s a bad idea and they’d like to see it go back to where it usually was. It’s affecting everybody: the tenants, the local housing authorities.
Mr. Speaker, I thought it was a bad idea two years ago when it first rolled out, I think it’s a bad idea today, and I think it will be a bad idea two years from now when we’re debating the same motion.
Mr. Speaker, I too will be supporting the motion. I know from talking to local housing authorities the frustrations they’re facing just trying to meet the required collection, which was, in the past, 90 per cent of all…. Most of these LHOs were able to collect 90 per cent of their rental revenues, but because of the income switch it’s basically that they’re having problems with tenants, Income Support, trying to get the documentation in place, trying to ensure that they’re able to meet their 90 per cent.
In regard to statistics I saw just last week, the majority of our LHOs are now, in some cases, well below 50 per cent of their collection rate. I think that in light of the Auditor General’s report, which clearly identifies that we have to do a better job by way of collections…. Also, we have to do a better job of delivering programs and services. A lot of that is directly related to the decisions made to basically consolidate the income programs in one area and take $30 million out of the Housing Corporation. That $30 million was there to pay for the cost of social housing in the Northwest Territories. So all we did was transfer $30 million to EC&E, pay them a large administration fee, hire 13 people, and still we can’t get it right.
As a government we do have a responsibility to listen to what our constituents are saying and, more importantly, I believe everyone who ran in the last general election heard it loud and clear, going door to door and talking to our tenants and also talking to the residents of our communities.
Mr. Speaker, I think it’s important that we do listen. Yes, let’s admit we made a mistake. Let’s get it back on track and allow housing to be managed through the housing authorities so people have a one-stop way of dealing with their housing needs, their assessment needs and also to be able to pay their rent all in one location.
Mr. Speaker, it’s important that we as government sometimes admit we make mistakes. I’ll admit it here in the House, as the previous Minister of Housing, for making that mistake. I heard it loud and clear during my tour through the communities, especially in Holman Island, where the whole community was out, and basically this issue was top and centre on everyone’s mind in regard to how it affected every employer in the community, every resident in the community and also the number of people that had to look at alternative housing.
A lot of people are living worse off now than they were before this policy decision was made, because they are living in worse-off housing conditions and having to move out of social housing because they just can’t afford to pay the rent, or they can’t afford to get the income support cheque in time, in which case they’re classified at an economic rate where you’re having to pay that rate until you try to get your paperwork in order.
Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting the motion.
Mr. Speaker, I too will be supporting the motion. I find the transfer of the public housing program to the Department of Education…. I don’t believe it was well thought out, and it was something I think has a good theoretical application but doesn’t apply practically. I think there’s enough work done on this side. It was felt the theory was that it would be an easy, smooth transfer over, and that all of the subsidies were going to try to be under one umbrella, and that they were going to attempt to have one-stop shopping for the tenants in the public housing.
As it turns out, it has complicated the lives of the people in public housing, definitely in Tu Nedhe. I find there is almost 50 per cent of the people in Tu Nedhe live in public housing. There’s an additional problem that I had seen with this transfer initially. There is, because as high as 65 per cent of some of the population in some of the communities live in public housing, there is not a stigma attached to living in public housing, as there is to have to go to the government for income support. Therefore, what this transfer has, in effect, done is taken all the people currently in public housing, all 2,000-plus families in public housing, and has essentially transferred them over to being income support clients.
I’m supporting the motion. Hopefully, the government will see that this was a mistake. I know, certainly, the people in the Tu Nedhe and even the workers in Tu Nedhe recognize that this is a mistake. They’ve worked with it, and they don’t feel it is something that is going to be successful. They don’t feel it’s something that is going to benefit the tenants in public housing. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank the Members for sharing their concerns and issues pertaining to this particular motion. These issues and concerns were addressed by the social program that we met with earlier last week. And we made a commitment to go back to the House and also to the committee in six months’ time to identify where the progress is at with the short-term/long-term action plan that’s been developed by the people from the community.
Mr. Speaker, just to highlight what’s been taking place pertaining to this motion, September ’07 is when it all started with identifying concerns and issues from our trips to the communities. As Members have shared in this House through various avenues, we’ve heard concerns, so we took immediate steps with my department and the Housing Corporation to find solutions to these issues.
We did conduct meetings in the communities at the regional level in September 2007, November 2007 and December. We did form committee representatives of ECE, Housing Corporation, local housing authorities, chairpersons of each housing authority and also the community reps and tenant relations officers, as well. So there were a variety of parties that were involved in the discussion. The group also met just last month to develop an action plan on long-term and short-term goals.
Those action plans came from the grassroots people, the people who are involved with the issues at hand. They’re the ones giving us the feedback to say these are the issues we need to deal with. They’re giving us solutions to work these challenges that we’re faced with.
Mr. Speaker, like any other projects that we take on or transfer assignments, we go through growing pains. It takes time to take on the new initiatives and make it work. We’ve been through so many initiatives in the past, transferring assignments and projects, and this is not the first time we’re going through this. It’s been two years, and it’s still a work in progress. We are faced with challenges. We’re aware of that. The community reps have identified it. That’s why we developed these plans.
The arrears that some Members have highlighted, as well as at the community level, were there before the transfer assignment, the transfer of the program. So we can’t say this created more arrears in the community. They were there before the transfer.
Also, just moving forward on this, I think we should be given the opportunity to initiate this short-term/long-term action plan with the community representatives, the LHOs, the client service officers in the communities, the regional reps, because I’m sure we fully believe they can make it work. They’re the ones who are the eyes and ears of our departments, both my department of ECE and also the Housing Corporation. We are continually closely working with them.
I see this as building on our relationship that we have in the community. We are continuing to build on the positive working relationships that we have with our department and directly with the communities.
Continuing on the working relationship also with the Members, I very much appreciate, myself and Mr. Miltenberger, getting input and feedback from them on identifying possible or potential solutions to challenges or problems we are faced with on a day-to-day basis at the community level.
Mr. Speaker, I won’t take much time, but I think one of the areas that the committee identified was a huge communication breakdown between the organizations, between agencies. There is a plan in place to deal with that communication. That’s probably where assessment and individuals not sure where to go to…. That has been an issue in the communities. We are making progress on that.
As we speak, the short-term action plan is currently being worked on, and we are making progress towards that. Now we need to identify long-term goals and objectives at the community level.
I’d like to speak to the motion as well. I want to speak in support of some of the comments that Minister Lafferty made. We’ve now been in office about four and a half months, since mid-October. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into coming up with ways to deal with the one issue of assessments and timeliness. We believe we have, as we have indicated to committee, come up with a plan to do that. We’ve got a number of very specific ways we want to do that, tailor-made, hopefully, to the community on a community-by-community basis.
I also would like to point out that in terms of just the rental arrears, we do have about $7 million in arrears as of the end of March last year. There are a significant number of communities that are where they should be on their collection, but clearly, on those communities that are not yet at that level or have moved away from that level, we have work to do.
This issue goes back to 1999. At the time I was Minister of Education; Premier Roland was the Premier of Health at the time. We started what was called a harmonization initiative.
Interjection
Sorry. Minister of Health. We were engaged in an initiative called harmonization, which carried on until the 14th Assembly, with a certain number of fits and starts, and then further into the 15th, where it was put into place with the one-window approach.
Mr. Speaker, I’ve been an MLA now for over 12 years. Housing has always been the major issue in my community in terms of concerns. One of the reasons we moved to harmonization and the one-window approach was because of the extreme dissatisfaction with the then-current system or the system of the old days, when there were a number of doors to go through. There were stovepipes, where Education handled social support, and before that, Social Services handled welfare. They didn’t talk to each other, and clients were shuffled from pillar to post, trying to get things done.
The decision was made, after many years of study and debate, to do this process we have now. I just ask for the time to, in fact, give us the chance to put into place the things we’ve been working on. We’ve brought LHO chairs and managers into Yellowknife for the first time in years to sit down with the district staff, headquarters staff and ECE folks.
We have working committees now between the two departments, running community-by-community to sort out where there are problems in terms of the assessment and timeliness, and what are the options that we can put into place. We are identifying solutions community by community.
So I appreciate the concern, and I want to recognize it. Yes, housing is an issue for every one of us. We want to have the best possible system for our constituencies, our constituents that we all serve. We are facing very knowledgeable critics — former Ministers, former presidents of the Housing Corporation, long-term employees of the Housing Corporation that are intimately familiar with the workings, plus all the other Members.
So we take the concerns very seriously. We will be coming back in June, as we promised, to lay out what we’ve done and what progress we can demonstrate to this House.
I’ll allow the mover of the motion to close the debate.
We’ve had good debates here in the House with respect to this motion. I always believe in the fundamentals of democracy. And if our people want something, it’s my job as MLA — and our job as MLAs — to move their needs forward. That is one of the things we’re doing here with this motion, Mr. Speaker.
I know the Ministers have both spoken and said, “Give us time.” But they’ve had lots of time already, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know what…. To me, it looks like government is trying to convince themselves it’s going to get better, but I don’t believe it’s going to get any better, and our people don’t believe it’s going to get any better either, Mr. Speaker. This is why we want to resolve this and say, “Look, we had something that wasn’t broke, and we broke it, and we shifted it over to EC&E, and it’s just not working.” Government is trying to convince itself that it’s going to get better, but it’s not. I don’t believe it is, and I don’t believe our people believe it is going to get any better.
So we’ve got this motion here, and the government wants to resolve issues. What they’re really doing, by continuing this process, is providing a disservice to our people by creating a whole new level of issues. There are really issues that the communities, regions and people do want resolved, but by creating new issues, it just further complicates our goals of providing safe, reliable housing for our people and a safe, reliable system that goes with it too.
I’ve always believed we should be providing housing, not taking it away from our people. The old system was working. Our people have asked that we put it back to the Housing Corporation and continue from there. Then we can concentrate on the other issues that are there for our communities.
So with that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to have a recorded vote. I rest my case. Mahsi.
The Member has asked for a recorded vote on the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please stand.
Mr. Ramsay, Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Robert McLeod, Mr. Jacobson, Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Krutko, Mr. Bromley, Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Menicoche.
All those opposed to the motion, please stand. All those abstaining from the motion, please stand.
Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Lafferty, Ms. Lee, Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. Roland, Mr. Michael McLeod, Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Results of the vote: nine for, zero against, eight abstaining.
Motion carried.
