Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister responsible for Income Assistance and the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, many elders and seniors in our territory live in poverty and we have a high cost of living here in the Northwest Territories. The income assistance policy requires seniors to add their names to the public housing waitlist however seniors, who need additional financial support and who own their own homes, cannot add their names to the public housing waitlist. Many remote communities struggle with housing resale and the Housing Corporation is currently encouraging homeownership as they do not have the public housing stock to accommodate the housing needs of all NWT residents that are currently on their waitlist. As such, will the Minister reduce barriers for seniors by removing the income assistance requirements that requires seniors to add their names to the public housing waitlist? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So if a senior owns their home and there's no mortgage on that home, they don't need to add their name to the public housing waitlist. If they have a mortgage, income assistance can support them with some mortgage payments. However, income assistance doesn't generally pay down debts. So, yeah, I just want to make clear if you own your own home free and clear with no mortgage, you do not need to have your name on the public housing waitlist. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral Questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, aging in place depends on family support. And without family support and multigenerational living we would need far more than the original projection of 435 long term care beds. The income assistance policy currently states that rent can be paid by an adult child on behalf of a parent if the dwelling is in a separate living quarter approved by a secondary suite in accordance with the local municipality.
Quite simply, Mr. Speaker, this is not a realty for life in the North. So will the Minister support multigenerational housing by removing policy barriers that stand in the way of seniors using income assistance to age in place with the support of family? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a very specific question. I believe it's she's quoting page 76 of the policy manual, if my memory serves me correctly. But the Member makes some good points, and I'm endeavoring to find out why exactly that requirement is there. Perhaps there are other laws or fire code issues related to it. So I want to find that out, and then I can get back to the Member. Because if there are some easy wins, I'm always happy to do those. But I want to note that we are also working on a seniors specific income assistance stream, recognizing that there are differences between individuals who are out of the workforce, perhaps for a short amount of time, and those who have aged out of the workforce, that they have difference needs and there's no need to treat them identically in the same program. So things like this are exactly what we want to look at for those types of programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for both of the questions I just asked, both of those items are very clearly and the Minister is right on page 67 to 69 of the policy manual handbook for income assistance. And, for example, with my question with the waitlist, those items are listed in the policy manual. And so when we talk about inconsistencies with policies for seniors, this is where the inconsistencies come from. If people are applying the manual book, and they're applying it differently or on a casebycase basis, you're ending up with a different rule for one senior than you are for another. So if it's not a rule, take it out of the manual.
My other frustration here today is that a lot of what I'm bringing up here are longstanding income assistance policy issues that have been brought up by multiple Assemblies and by multiple people and even people that have been commissioned by the GNWT to create reports. One of them is the ICM report. And so I think that waiting for the end of a review to see these changes happen, just isn't good enough and we need to see change quickly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My question for the Minister is how does the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment intend to work with the Minister of Health and Social Services on the elder strategy so that we can bring these policy inconsistencies together? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Integrated service delivery is an approach I talk about often. It is the approach we are moving towards where we design programs for the residents, not for government, and that means not thinking what our department can do but what the person needs and then using a wholeof-government approach. And with that in mind, I can confirm that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment along with the Department of Housing and Health and Social Services are part of a interdepartmental working group. I believe they met earlier this well, I guess in May now, and are going to continue to meet and we're focusing on these types of programs, what can we do for seniors to help them age in place, how can we adapt our programs, what gaps are there in programs. So this work is happening at the officials levels, and I am constantly pushing it at the Cabinet level as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I promise to be much quicker. Given that housing Northerners seems to be a little bit of a hot potato between the Department of or the Housing Corporation, and Department of ECE, and Health and Social Services, will the Minister commit to working with Health and Social Services and the Housing Corporation to come up with a multigenerational housing model that suits our desire to have residents age in place in their home communities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that's the plan. That's the reality. There are intergenerational housing arrangements right now, and as a government we need to ensure that we're serving the people in those arrangements. Again, there's working groups. I work with my Cabinet colleagues on a higher level, and this is the work we want to do. This is the work we have to do. We have to look at the realities on the ground and then design our policy and programs to meet those realities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
