Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services on my Member's statement. I would like to ask the Minister if there have been any instances where a senior or seniors, a senior couple, have had their homes retrofitted to a barrier-free state and are now embroiled in full homecare for that unit. Thank you.
Minister of Health and Social Services.
Mr. Speaker, I am not off the top of my head aware of the specific retrofits that may have been conducted through programs available through the organizations like the Housing Corporation, but I'm happy to sit down with the Minister responsible and figure that out and get back to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, this is, I guess, a question to the Minister of Health, because my assumption is that, when homecare is involved, even though the Housing Corporation may be responsible for retrofitting the unit, it would fall under Health and Social Services, but I'm not 100 percent sure. I would like to ask the Minister if he is aware if the Housing Corporation and his department have any plans to create barrier-free units out of home ownership units for seniors so they can age in place?
As I have said before and I will say again, this government is committed to aging in place. Following up on the Member's statement, I agree with much of what the Member said as far as finding ways to keep our elders in their homes and their communities for as long as possible. I don't agree with all of his conclusions as a result of long-term care, but we are committed to aging in place.
With respect to the Housing Corporation, they are working on a senior housing initiative that will help them actually make the determination in this particular area. When it comes to homecare, every homecare activity has to be based on a medical-type referral. In order to receive homecare, you have to have some type of a referral. That may include homecare support workers or occupational therapists or others to help them keep seniors in their homes. So, yes, the Housing Corporation is working on that.
I'm aware that homecare can be applied in houses that are owned by the NWT Housing Corporation for seniors' housing, but the main target group, as I see it, would be the homeowners. I would like to ask the Minister if there is any plan to budget any actual money? Maybe it would be a better way to ask: is any money actually put in place to allow seniors to age in place in their home in their communities?
It is my understanding that the Housing Corporation is actually working on that exact initiative to find ways to support homeowners who need to do retrofits to help individuals age in place. Related through Health and Social Services, we can have occupational therapists, when there is a referral, come into people's homes and help them with other supports to help support activities of daily living, to identify the types of grab bars and other things that might be valuable or alternatives to ramps and those types of things. So occupational therapy, upon referral, can go into communities to help make those assessments.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is really an initiative or a mandate that requires good timing. The mandate says taking action so that seniors can age in place, so, according to the mandate that we set out four years ago, we should actually have seniors aging in place in their homes right now, but we do not, and we are just crossing the last budget. I am asking if the money is going to be used from homecare now in order to hire new staff so that we can expand homecare, so we can allow seniors to age in place, so we can meet that mandate. That is an important mandate. I think the federal government knew that when they put $6 billion into homecare when they were elected. So I would like to ask the Minister again: will there be new staff, new money, put into the field of homecare, targeted at our mandate of aging in place?
Thanks to the Members, earlier in this Assembly we actually put $1.5 million, and some additional dollars as well, into the creation of new homecare positions throughout the Northwest Territories. We have struggled to fill all those positions, but those positions have been created. We are also moving forward with an initiative to support aging in place through family and paid community caregivers. We are getting ready to roll that pilot out as we speak. It should be out early in the new year. I also understand that we already have the CARE Mobility program in place, which is where homeowners can apply for money to make upgrades to their homes to help them age in place. We have the ability for our occupational therapists, upon referral, to go in and help individuals determine what kind of supports they might need in their homes to help them age in place.
Mr. Speaker, we are committed to supporting those who age in place. We are currently in the middle of the homecare review, which we anticipate will be completed on March 31st. That will help us make informed decisions on where additional resources need to go, but it will also give us the ability to refocus the dollars we have into areas that are actually going to make a direct impact.
As I mentioned earlier, we have put in a number of home support positions as a result of the budget that the Members supported. We are having some difficulty in some of our communities filling those positions, and I am certainly willing to and I will be reaching out to the leadership in those communities soon to figure out how we can work together to fill those positions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
