Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement, I spoke about divestment of public housing by the NWT Housing Corporation. Along that line, I have questions for the Minister of Housing. For planning purposes, will the Minister get the NWT Housing Corporation to look at all of the public housing tenants to see how many of them are paying rent in the two top bands that are provided to authorities for rent amounts? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From data that we have compiled since January, there are approximately 270 households making a significant amount of money, about $5,000 a month. Our local housing organizations are working with some of these owners, the ones that are in higher incomes, to explore home ownership and support options with our department to see how we can address those.
On the other note, we do have a unit disposal plan, where we have sold about 20 units in 2018-2019. We have also demolished 20 units across the territory where we can build new units, whether it is public housing that needs to be addressed. We are on a plan, and we are continuing to work diligently on addressing the issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Will the Minister agree to share that plan with us, the plan where it looks like the Minister is looking at divesting public housing, which I think is the right direction to go? I would like to ask the Minister if he is prepared to share that plan with us, indicating how many units that the Housing Corporation could probably divest itself of.
Since April 1, 2016, we have been working on trying to make a commitment to dispose of 150 units. Currently, to date, we have disposed of 183 surplus units though a combination of sales, getting people into homeownership or lease-to-own, and also through demolition. That is something that we are going to continue to work on with feedback from communities and working with standing committee. We will continue to do that work.
As I mentioned, the community housing plans are something that is unique, and I think, when we work with leadership and communities, that they can tell us what their priorities in terms of housing are, and we will address that community disposal unit.
I first spoke of community housing development plans -- I add one word in there that is slightly different from what the government is doing, "development" -- in this House about 10 years ago. Can the Minister advise how many of these plans, whether they are called community housing plans or community development housing plans, exist today across the territory?
In the last session that we had, we had a similar question, and I did mention that we had six communities that we were looking forward to developing community housing plans across the Northwest Territories. We set that as the goal for our first year.
Since we have had the Housing Summit and since we have been reaching out to leaders across the territory, we have about 10 community housing plans in place, and we will continue to work with our leadership and our community NGOs. I will continue to encourage our leadership across the NWT, whether it is NGOs or whether it is mayors and chiefs, to reach out to the NWT Housing Corporation and work on setting up a community housing plan so that we know how to invest the dollars. Rather than us telling them what they need, they tell us, and we will invest the funding that we have received from the federal government and the work that we have been doing there.
Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister advise whether he can incorporate a divestment plan, community by community, in these community development plans? Thank you.
We did make a commitment that we would look at trying to demolish and sell units, about 50 a year, and we are reaching and going over those targets. As we develop these community plans with leadership and people in the community, that is something that we are going to have to address. We don't want to be the ones who tell communities what they need and what they want. It has to be a responsibility between leadership from the communities and us, working together, as I mentioned, to address the housing priorities; and yes, we will be making that a priority. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
