Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I spoke about transitional housing in Nunakput, and my questions are for the Minister of Housing: can the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation give an update on the transitional housing in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been working with a lot of our community governments as well as NGOs. At the same time, we are working, as the Member has known, as I've made statements in the House, on the Northern Pathways to Housing Program. Those have been successful. They have been pilot projects. In Simpson and Aklavik, we have seen some really good things moving forward, as well as in Behchoko. Moving forward from this program, I think we can work with our community governments to possibly access some of our co-investment dollars or the community housing support initiative dollars to address some of these transitional needs in housing. It is a big issue across the territory, and we will encourage our leadership to work with us to address those needs.
Look at my region. I believe there's at least one community that has a contract for the LHOs. I think programs like that seem to work for smaller remote communities. My second question is: how does the Government of the Northwest Territories implement services that are funded directly from the federal government to Indigenous governments across the Northwest Territories? I am going to use IRC and Housing, for an example.
One of the biggest things that we have done through the NWT Housing Corporation is we have been really advocating on behalf of the Indigenous governments in all of our communities across the Northwest Territories with the federal government. The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation is one of the communities that have been able to access funding dollars through ITK, and one of the things that came out of that was we started the housing summit, first housing summit, where we had all our leadership in attendance, and working on trying to build a one voice to take to our NIOs, our National Indigenous Organizations, as well as the federal government to ensure that we get the funding that the federal government has given to the NIOs to meet the needs throughout the territories. The housing summit that we had earlier this year is a good indication that we are getting that information out to our leadership and our non-governmental organizations.
I appreciate the response. I am a strong believer that, when Indigenous governments get funding directly from the federal government, I think we need to work with Indigenous governments and the Government of the Northwest Territories to ensure that we implement that funding properly so that it is not lopsided. There are a few examples out there, but I won't dig too far. Can the Minister give an update on the community housing plans, and will the idea of tiny homes be a discussion during these planning sessions?
The community housing plans, as I've said, are going to be a game changer for our communities across the Northwest Territories on how we address housing. Every community has their own special needs, and when we develop these community housing plans, it's going to be the communities that are going to tell us what their priorities are, rather than us telling the communities what they need. This past weekend was also the first time that we just had a meeting with all of our district offices across the territory, on Saturday, as well as our board chairs. It was the first time that we sat down and listened to what the concerns were in all of the regions across the NWT and how do we address them. I want to let the MLAs know that I did let the board chairs know as well as the district office managers know that all MLAs have been bringing up these concerns to me and the office, and we are working on addressing those issues. The community housing plans are going to be a game changer moving forward to addressing our housing needs.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's good to see that we are having meetings and having discussions about these issues. You know, action plans and follow-up as we move into the next government is very key. It's more of a comment than anything. I am just wondering what the Minister's plans are as we close up these last five days of this Assembly.
I have chatted with the staff and talked about putting a transitional document. I know we do have a transitional committee here within the next government, but I really wanted to make sure that, with something as important as housing, that I would sit down with my staff and we would look at creating some type of a transitional document moving into the next government. Over the past two governments, we have made some really big strides and we have had some great leadership from our past Ministers who were responsible for housing, and I just want to carry that forward and make sure that we continue the continuity of the programs, the services, the partnerships, and promoting the programs that we have, and continuing to work with the federal government, our Indigenous governments and making sure that they are prepared for housing issues moving into the 19th Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
