Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement today I talked about the Housing Corporation and the arrears situation as well as housing for people who don't have proper running water and that. So my first question is to the Minister responsible for Housing. What has the Corporation done to ensure that members, residents, clients, tenants, whatever name you want to call them, do not get into arrears? What kind of promotional items do they give to the clients so that they don't get into arrears? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of arrears was a serious concern for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation for many years and, during the last Legislative Assembly, in order to try to assist communities and the local housing organizations with the collection of arrears, the decision was made by a past Minister to actually bring the collections internally into headquarters, which was, in my opinion, a very good move. It meant that the community people did not have to address their own neighbours with that, so a great move that I support 100 per cent.
Currently, what we do is, because it is through headquarters now and we are now in a day of computer literacy, we actually have really good records that show us as soon as someone is in arrears. At that point, we notify the local housing organization, who do try to contact the people. We do everything we can to address them, to try to contact people, but, if they do not answer our calls or open the door, at that point we are left with no recourse; but, like I said, we reach out in every way we can by personally trying to contact the people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for her answer, but she kind of answered my second question that I was going to ask. My first question is: what kind of promotion is the Corporation doing so that clients don't get into this situation? So what are they doing so that, as soon as they get into the homes, they understand that this could potentially be a situation? What is the Corporation doing to promote getting this information out to the people?
Currently, the only method that we really use besides the one-on-one outreach to people is when people do sign up to the Housing Corporation, we actually sit down with them, have the paperwork signed for the landlord/tenant agreement form, and in that we talk about their obligations to make payments with them. We are recognizing, however, that we are not the best in communicating. So we are trying to beef up our communication plan and have a better way not only to address people with their arrears, but to also let people know what their rights and their responsibilities are in a variety of areas.
I thank the Minister for her answer. That is great. Can the Minister make a commitment to share with committee what this plan is and how we can work together to get this message out to the residents so that, you know, they are not in these situations where they could end up with an eviction? So will the Minister make a commitment to committee that she will share this plan with us once it is complete?
Yes, I can make that commitment. We had planned, as soon as the survey results were all compiled, that we would be providing a report on what we heard, and we would be providing that to committee as well. I am hoping that after that that we can actually meet more regularly with the committee to look at all of the feedback that we have got, to look at the areas that we are doing well, to look at the areas that we need improvement, and to actually work together to define the next steps.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I greatly applaud the Minister for taking these steps. I think this is a great step to help the residents and hopefully eliminate people from getting out of the arrears. My last question is: part of my Member's statement was, we talked about people in homes who do not have running water, do not have power, do not have heat except for a wood stove, and they are living in third-world conditions. These homes are decrepit or basically should be torn down, and these people are living in them. So what is the government or the department or the Corporation and the Minister going to do to help these people get out of these third-world conditions so they can live in a good family home? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, recognize that there are a lot of homes within the Northwest Territories that do not have basic amenities in them such as running water and flush toilets; however, as the Government of the Northwest Territories we have to be very careful in what we take on as liabilities. So therefore we have a useful life with our housing stock. If houses are deemed to be over 70 per cent in need of repairs, at that point we cannot invest financially in them because of the liability that may come and the huge expense.
So for people who have homes that in a fair condition, they can access a variety of homeownership programs, such as our CARE Program, that will give up to $100,000 to provide renovations. They can access our SAFE Program that will provide up to $10,000 for renovations. They can access our Care Mobility Program that assesses if they have disabilities. So we have a variety of programs that are available, and if their homes are not adequate and are at the point where the Member has stated that they are no longer habitable, then I would like to suggest that they actually put their name on our public housing list to get into a public housing unit.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
