Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that a person with a disability may receive extra funding to pay for things related to the disability; however, I am concerned still around the reporting requirements oh, okay. I thought sorry about that. Those with disability. Is the government looking to make this less burdensome on residents? I know they ask for utility bills, rent, disability assessment form, disability benefit from the federal government, notice of assessment from previous tax year; how often is all of this required? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the employment assistance program provides funding to people to help meet their basic needs. So it is not a program to you know, to make people rich or anything like that. So I understand that for the amount of money that you get, it can seem like a lot of work to provide all of these documents. That is why at the beginning of this Assembly, I set out to change the program and overhaul the program. And we have done the work, and we are months away from launching the new income assistance program for seniors and persons with disabilities. Once that happens, the persons with disabilities will have to provide their notice of assessment once a year. That doesn't mean that's the end of all documentation because if they would like their power bill paid, they have to provide the power bill. So there's things like that where that type of documentation will always need to be provided. How else would the department know how much the power bill is?
So recently, we have been transitioning from the old program hopefully to the new program. There have been delays. And with that transition, we have started I'll say removing the payroll. So if someone is not expected their income is going to change, they can be payrolled so they only have to provide documents, you know, every three months, six months, or 12 months. Because we are changing to the new program, we want to meet with clients, tell them about the new program and how it's going to work. And so because of that, it might seem like there is more frequent requests for documents but it's because we are working with the clients to help inform them of what it's going to look like going forward. So, Mr. Speaker, yes, we are streamlining the program. It's been a long process, but we are now mere months away. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's good to hear that. Good positive change.
Will the Minister commit to review the income support policy to reduce administrative burden for elders and people with disabilities? And then he touched base on some of them already too. So that's good.
Thank you, Member
But I do have one more question, sorry about that.
Are ECE and Housing NWT working together to create a more holistic approach to income support and social housing programs? Is there anything being done between the two departments to make it easier for people to access services? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes. With, you know, income assistance does provide funding for rent as does the housing corporation. So, you know, we have two essentially parallel housing support programs in the territory. So we have been working with the housing corporation figuring out, you know, where we can reduce some of these redundancies and how we can better support clients. So, yes, that work is ongoing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Written questions. Returns to written questions.
Colleagues, we'll return after a short recess.
SHORT RECESS
