Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister of Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. I understand the issue of physical limitations; however, planning is fundamental. My question is: what, if any, work plan progress has been done under the Voices on Housing Survey? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Voices on Housing Survey was a phenomenal success, with 1,500 responses throughout the territories. Every community actually provided responses to it, which shows the need for housing. I take this issue very seriously. Housing is a basic need.
It is one of the critical things that we need before people can move forward and do other things for self-development and wellness. I focused the whole summer, actually, on meeting with the Housing Corporation every two weeks, and we hashed out policies constantly. We have quite a few policies that are coming forward based on this survey.
I will be doing a Minister's statement on that, specifically on the housing survey and the policies that we have made, but I can say that some of the policies that we will be rolling out and we will be announced in my Minister's statement. As soon as the Minister's statement is done, it will begin implementation of things such as a senior's retrofit program that can be bundled onto other services so that they can actually get more renovations to their homes. We are going to be having a fuel tank initiative to help homeowners, which will help with some of the insurance issues that communities are facing and environmental concerns. We are going to be having a new rent supplement program that is more accessible to people.
We are going to be working with some of the NGOs to support them with the rent supplement program so that they can actually provide services within a Housing First model. Policies are coming in to change so that students and people on medical travel, or medical needs, will have more access, better services to public housing.
We have a lot of policies that have been worked on. We have more to come. It is a passion of mine, and I have been working diligently, and it is really exciting to be able to provide the Minister's statement towards the end of this session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks for that response on what we can expect as we move forward. My next question: as mentioned within the survey, can we expect consultation at the regional level after the development of action plans?
I do believe in being inclusive, and so within that, when we were doing the developmental policies, it did not just come from headquarters. Within the policy developments, we have the regional departments that are actually part of that policy development team. In fact, we have LHOs, local housing organizations that were part of that policy development team, so we have tried to be as inclusive as possible.
We heard the comments from residents who were working with the service providers that are on the ground, the local housing organizations. Yes, we have been trying to be as inclusive as possible to develop these policies. We got amazing feedback from staff, from the regional departments, and from the local housing organizations on how excited they are that we are moving towards this new initiative.
Thanks for the response, Minister. As we all know, there are federal engagements, federal announcements made on the infrastructure dollars on the National Housing Strategy. Is the department working towards securing resources from that national strategy initiative?
To address the needs of housing is not only a Government of the Northwest Territories issue. It is not only a homeowner or a residents issue. It is a bigger issue. It belongs that all governments, including municipalities, including the federal government need to have help within this to be able to deal with that, so, yes, we have been actively engaging with the federal government to access housing supports. In fact, we have secured a deal with the federal government that we would have a Northern Territory strategy that would provide assistance only to the Territories. That has already been released.
There was a $300 million subsidy to two of the three territories, specifically to address our needs. We have been advocating more when the National Housing Strategy will be released, we are hoping in November, and once it is released you will see that there have been more supports provided to the northern territories. So, yes, we have been actively lobbying the federal government for supports for housing in the Territories.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. On the issue of the access to that capital as mentioned, will the Minister seriously look at entertaining a proposal submitted by the community of Tulita to construct a seniors' complex? There is no seniors' complex within that community, and I've received numerous phone calls. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Until the details of the National Housing Program are released by the federal government, I can't actually say exactly what funding is coming within that strategy. However, what I can say is that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation does see a huge need for seniors' accommodations, and so we will be focusing within the next fiscal year on doing a total research project on how many seniors are out there in need of public housing, what specifically are their needs, and within that we will be developing a seniors programs that specifically are tailored towards meeting the needs of seniors and elders within the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
