Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement earlier today, I mentioned that as a nation we are facing an affordable public housing crisis. With only 23 years left in the declining funding model from Ottawa, the NWT is being saddled with decisions on affordability, adequacy and quality in its annual public housing budgets. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
Recently the Minister was in Ottawa with his Cabinet colleagues discussing the infrastructure needs for Northerners with his federal counterparts. We know that an announcement for $18 million over five years for the extension of the Affordable Housing Agreement followed.
Can the Minister inform the House, what does this extension mean and does this deal with the shortcomings of a declining CMHC funding model? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The agreement was an extension to the Investment in Northern Housing Initiative that provided $1.8 million annually from the federal government, which is matched by the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. So that gives us about $3.6 million in investment over the next five years.
We’ve used these funds in the past to help deal with some of the programs to help low and modest income homeownership repairs, and it doesn’t address the problem of declining federal funding to operate social housing.
We’re continuing to have discussions with our counterpart in Ottawa on this issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, we know that CMHC funding for the Northwest Territories is declining from $21 million in 2001 to zero by 2038 with only 23 years left in funding. We also know that 50 percent of our housing stock today is over 30 years old or more.
Can the Minister tell us, what is the current strategy of the NWT Housing Corporation in dealing with these two very important problems? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, first of all, we’re very fortunate that the 17th Legislative Assembly has added about $2.1 million annually to the NWT Housing Corp to help offset some of the decline in federal funding. We do have a long-term strategy. I mean, we would hope that the federal government enters into an arrangement on public housing for long-term, stable funding in partnership with us, because we see that as a way of going forward.
But we are taking steps to address the declining funding. I’ve spoken to this before. We’re building more multi-family energy-efficient units to help with that. We’ve done about 700 retrofits to existing units during the life of this 17th Assembly. We’ve invested in energy initiatives like solar and biomass. We’re also realigned our rent scales and we’ve improved the administrative efficiencies of our operation with the local housing authorities. I have to give a shout out to the local housing authorities, not only to them but to the clients because many of them are stepping up to the plate and starting to honour the commitments that they’ve made. That’s why I made the announcement during my opening remarks yesterday that the collection rate is at 97 percent, so I think a huge shout out should go to them.
This helps us deal with the sustainability of our public housing stock, because if we can collect rent, then we can reinvest that money and not have to count so much on the declining federal funding. So we’re taking steps to deal with that, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, of course managing our assets better will result in a healthier balance sheet. This is a given. We know that there are about 400 mortgages still being held by the Housing Corporation and this has not always been a smoothly run area. Collection rates were around 30 percent back in 2012 with arrears totaling about $16 million, then came the Revised Mortgage Balance Program to deal with that.
Can the Minister inform the House today, what is the current status of this Revised Mortgage Balance Program and what is our current rate of collection and how are we dealing with this balance of arrears? Thank you.
The Member is correct that we did introduce a Revised Mortgage Balance Program near the end of 2012. We gave homeowners with mortgages with the NWT Housing Corporation a chance to get a fresh start with predictable, fair monthly rent. Total arrears in the mortgage portfolio have been reduced from $16.5 million to $9.1 million over the last couple of years. A majority of the clients have actually opted into the new program and collection rates have been in the 70 to 80 percent range for these clients. We have about 115 clients that have not entered the new program for one reason or another and collections among these clients are very low. A lot of these clients we’re now talking to legal counsel, pursue collections through the courts. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With 2,700 rental units being managed by local housing authorities across the NWT, again, managing our rental collection, and if done properly, will help the bottom line.
So I do applaud the good work that the Minister and Housing Corporation has done in cleaning up this backlog of a low collection rate, which back in 2008 was about 71 percent and as we heard today, I got the number 97 percent today. So that’s a good job. That said, we still have some LHOs today that have collection rates under 70 percent.
What is the Minister doing to improve these rental collections in those specific communities? Thank you.
There are about three elements to the collection approach for our rental units. First of all, we need to improve the collection of current rent and we did note that 97 percent was a good sign that progress is being made, and I think we see that in all areas of the Northwest Territories.
Secondly, we need to ensure that those who have accumulated arrears enter into some form of repayment plan, and we do obtain rental officer orders for these tenants. We’re currently seeing the number of tenants with large arrears declining as people are starting to dig themselves out of the hole, and we still need to engage with collection of former residents. Because you moved out of one of our units, that doesn’t change the amount that you owe to the NWT Housing Corporation.
As the Member noted, we had a couple of LHOs that had collection rates under 70 percent last year. We’re working with the LHOs to ensure that they’re obtaining rental officer orders for tenants not paying their rent. At the same time, we want to work with tenants to enter into a repayment plan because our goal is to house people, not to evict them, and this goes a long way.
Again, I give a shout out to those that are honouring the commitments that they’ve made because we have seen a bit of an improvement. I just said that in a lot of these communities they do run a high risk of eviction if they don’t keep up with their rental payments and their arrears. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
