Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier tell us if Cabinet's new homelessness strategy titled A Way Home: A Comprehensive Strategy to Address Homelessness in the Northwest Territories, which will be tabled later today, will actually reduce the number of homeless people in the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that yes, the hope is that with having a homelessness strategy that we will reduce the number of homeless people in the Northwest Territories. The strategy works best as an integrated approach, both internally but we recognize we also have to work with partners outside of the GNWT. Not only are we looking at trying to alleviate some of those that are potential of being homeless but also to address chronic homelessness so that people that are homeless will not be living on the streets for 10, 20, 30 years as I've seen in my experience. We do know that homelessness will never be eradicated completely but this strategy is to try to lessen, to try to lessen the chances that people will become homeless and lessen the time that people will be homeless. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, can the Premier explain what outcomes Cabinet is expecting to achieve with the introduction of this Government of the Northwest Territories homelessness strategy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's a number of things that we're trying to achieve within the homelessness strategy. I think the bigger one is to make sure that all departments in the Government of the Northwest Territories are actually working together instead of in silos, which we often see, making sure that people do have the wraparound support, the integrated case management that they need to succeed. Those are major objectives. But the other thing is data collection. And as I've said earlier, I've said many times, is that before I never realized the importance of data collection and so I always thought get the work done, nevermind about the data. But I was wrong, Mr. Speaker. And it's important to get data collection, not only to identify how many people are homeless but, as I've said earlier, is that since I've been in politics I'm seeing women on the street that have succeeded, that I knew that had been in the shelters for 20, 30 years and have become healthier, stopped whatever substances they were using, actually got into the field of helping people.
So we need the data to find out what worked with those people as well. We can't be doing services that we don't measure. So two things: Really integrated service, working together instead of in silos; and, making sure that we know what's working and what's not working and how many people we're dealing with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I understand the final version of the Government of the Northwest Territories homeless strategy will be tabled later today. So can the Premier explain why the Government of the Northwest Territories homeless strategy has taken this long to complete and finally be tabled? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I remember correctly, it was a commitment made by a housing Minister. I'm not sure if it was this government or the past one, I have a feeling it was the past one, that committed to doing the strategy. When that was said, I mean, because of my background being a social worker and working so long with these people, that I knew that it wasn't going to be just as easy as we've stated. So we soon realized that it wasn't only housing that was needed. It was housing, it was health that was important, it was justice, it was income support, education, culture and employment. The problem was, Mr. Speaker, is that we had two years of COVID and the same departments that needed to work on this strategy were struggling, working desperately to save the lives of people. So once COVID kind of subsided, we got a handle on it, it's not gone evidently, but once we got a handle on it then we've started to focus back on to this and it was brought to my attention, as I thought earlier, that it needed to be an allofgovernment approach. So at that time then housing handed it over to myself as Premier for an allofgovernment approach.
Mr. Speaker, it could have been done. I could have said that there was a strategy when I first tabled or brought forward the draft. But I realized really quickly that we didn't have the feedback that was needed. We did not ask the people, and I'm a huge advocate of asking the people that experience it. They have the expertise. So we took a step back and we spent time to actually interview people NGOs, community governments, Indigenous people, the general public, and people with lived experience so that we could actually have a more comprehensive strategy and the feedback from standing committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, can the Premier explain when Housing NWT is going to alleviate the number of people who are on the housing waiting list in Fort Smith and how a great solution to end homelessness, like the tiny home project from the Salt River Nation, be dealt with; and lastly, how all other communities around the NWT will be better served by this new strategy titled A Way Home? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since I'm in charge of the homelessness strategy, which is a governing thing, the questions I think are more related to daytoday operations of homelessness so on that, the Minister responsible for Homelessness is responsible. I'd like to defer that question to her. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Minister responsible for Homelessness.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish it could be that easy, but we do have 33 communities throughout the Northwest Territories that we do have to provide adequate housing to as well. And looking at the housing wait list throughout the Northwest Territories, I want to say significant investment has been made throughout this government.
For the Member's riding, we do have just a second, sorry. We do have $3.1 million that will be invested into the Member's riding for this current year delivery and constructing four public housing units and repairing 41 housing units, and $542,000 for homeownership repair.
For the 20232024 fiscal year, we're looking at $2.6 million addressing also new construction of public housing units and money put into home repair as well.
And we are also still working with the Salt River First Nation as well too and the Fort Smith Metis Council as well. They were a part of the distinctionbased funding that this government had supported. So the message going forward to Ottawa was if you're not going to fund the GNWT, then recognize those Indigenous agreements and fund the communities and the Indigenous governments directly.
So with that, Mr. Speaker, we are working very closely with the community of Fort Smith. I know that housing is a crisis throughout the Northwest Territories, but we are doing our best to address these issues as a government in whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
