Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the request of ordinary Members, I deferred a statement on staff housing yesterday in order to allow the Member for Thebacha to speak about the concerns of the Ordinary Members' Caucus.
It is good that ordinary Members agree that the government is headed in the right direction with its long-term staff housing strategy. Members are also seeking answers to a number of issues which must be addressed in this Assembly.
As a result, a document containing detailed technical responses to the questions will be circulated to all Members on Friday or tabled in the House if translation is completed. The document will help in our discussion of this important initiative.
As you know, I announced the other day that implementation of the strategy will begin July 1, rather than April 1 of this year. This decision was made for a number of reasons. Some of them are technical and concern the serving of rental increase notices. Other reasons deal with concerns by employees that they do not have enough information or they do not understand the level of subsidies which will still be available.
That is understandable. We have been trying to clean up an incredible administrative mess in staff housing which took 25 years to create. The extra time will be used to make sure the 1,800 staff members affected by the changes develop a better understanding of the strategy and will know exactly what the next rates will mean to their personal budgets.
Most Members of this House know that our strategy is long overdue. We have been moving towards this day for at least 12 years now and Members of the Legislative Assembly have been persistent in their direction that the government get out of providing staff housing.
In 1979 a task force on housing made up of union and government representatives came to basically the same conclusions about the solutions needed in the housing sector. In 1985, the Assembly's Special Committee on Housing included a staff housing component in its review. However, the recommendations of the reviews were not fully implemented and, over three years ago, a committee was established and mandated by the former Government Leader to develop the long-term staff housing strategy.
More recently, market rents and user-pay utilities were implemented in Fort Smith, Hay River and Yellowknife. Implementation of these elements of the strategy was described as an interim step pending the completion of the long term strategy that was finalized and announced last December.
Mr. Speaker, it is important to remind ourselves that the housing strategy was designed to meet a number of objectives:
-We want to end the dramatic differences that presently exist in the amount of money paid by employees renting similar sized units, sometimes even within the same community;
-We are determined to narrow the gap between what our staff is paying for accommodation compared to what an employee is the private sector faces each and every month; and
-We want to encourage home ownership and stimulate the growth of private sector housing markets in as many locations as possible. By April of next year, the government will no longer be providing housing units to employees, including Ministers and MLAs, in Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith and Inuvik.
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Where home ownership is not practical, the strategy will encourage the private sector to develop accommodation. Heavily subsidized rents and utilities in the majority of our communities presently discourage tenants from seeking alternative accommodation, even when it is available. As a result, private developers are putting their money elsewhere. Use of occupancy guarantee provisions of the strategy will provide the type of certainty these developers need in order to get a return on their investment.
The Cabinet is convinced the new strategy, with its provisions for increased rents, user-pay utilities, protection for low income earners and options for home ownership, is the right way to go. We have listened to the concerns of the Members of the Legislative Assembly and have taken the time to listen and consider issues which have been raised by employees. Recent adjustments to the long-term staff housing strategy reflect that commitment.
For instance, user-pay for heating and water/sewage will be implemented July 1, 1994, a little over 16 months from now, rather than September of this year. The delay will give everyone ample time to adjust their expenditures to ensure their shelter costs can be met.
In addition, nurses in the Northwest Territories face some rather unique situations in respect to accommodation. Many of them live in nothing more than a small sitting room attached to a nursing clinic and do not enjoy reasonable levels of privacy, security and comfort.
As a result, the government is adjusting rents for nurses based on the type of accommodation and whether or not they share common facilities such as kitchens and washrooms.
The rents, which include utility charges, will vary from $750 to $1,000 a month. When the standard accommodation allowance is applied to these figures, the actual monthly rate will range from $300 to $550 per month.
Where nurses have reasonable levels of privacy and security, they will be charged a market rate and a flat charge of $150 per month for utilities. Nursing living in detached housing units will be considered in the same manner as all other employees of the government.
In many other cases, tenants are concerned about the condition of their accommodation and disagree with the assigned sizes of their units, which are used to calculate monthly rental rates. We appreciate there are some legitimate concerns. We want to address them in a fair and reasonable manner.
The government knows that some of its units are in poor condition and that this could mean higher than normal heating charges. Because of this, DPW, Personnel and the Housing Corporation staff will travel to all communities to conduct energy efficiency audits and to take new measurements if required. This process will identify units that are not up to standard. Based on this information, the government will lower rents accordingly until the units are repaired. If it is not practical to repair the unit, the lower rental rate will continue. Because employees and off-highway communities are interested in purchasing their government occupied unit, the strategy has been changed to let them do so, rather than limiting the sale to surplus housing only. All units in non-market communities will be appraised by a private sector appraiser with tenant involvement. The selling price will be based on the cost of replacement, depreciated by the age, and condition of the accommodation.
As well, employees in communities where there are no active real estate agencies, will be able to purchase their units for a cost that is 90 per cent of the depreciated value. This final adjustment recognizes the government will not be paying normal real estate agency fees, legal costs and transactions of this type.
The government believes these changes are positive and that they recognize many of the concerns expressed by employees over the last few months.
We are also confident the strategy will eliminate the conflicting policies currently in place in the public and staff housing programs and that the changes will generate more housing starts by developers and improve the overall housing inventory in the territories.
Combined with the home ownership incentives announced by the Housing Corporation, the new approach to staff housing will provide a package of attractive options for all residents in all areas of the Northwest Territories.
It will also ensure that employees living in government provided accommodation get the kind of protection they need, should they not be able to pay for the cost of their shelter.
There has been a great deal of concern over the implementation of the hardship allowance. Many employees see it as a form of social assistance and are insulted that a wage earner should have to apply for it. As a result, we have revised our thinking on this matter. So, instead of a hardship allowance, tenants will receive shelter assistance provided in the form of a rental reduction. It will make sure that total shelter costs will not exceed 30 per cent of gross household income. Gross household income means the combined total incomes earned by every person living in each household including salaries, commissions, investment interests, pensions and the standard accommodation allowance. Settlement allowances, however, will be excluded. Income from such sources as child tax credit payments, boarding allowances for students, retraining allowances, income of full-time students, treaty payments, and social assistance payments will also be excluded. Exclusion of settlement allowances from gross household income will ensure that tenants in small communities will not have their eligibility for shelter assistance calculated against a higher base income than their Yellowknife counterparts, who enjoy a lower cost of living.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the long-term housing strategy, and the changes I have noted today, should provide greater certainty to occupants of government provided housing and start us towards equity and housing opportunities among all territorial residents. Finally, we welcome the Assembly's review of the strategy and want Members to know that our staff is prepared to sit down with each Member of this Legislature to review the concerns of individual constituents, house by house, or case by case. Thank you.
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