Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the rent scale, I guess the Minister would be quite knowledgeable on the rent scale and know that it has taken, in the past, millions of dollars and years of work to develop a rent scale for the whole Northwest Territories. What drove that was the ability for the Housing Corporation to shift its program. In the past, the Housing Corporation had pretty well 90 percent of its program as rental housing, ten percent of this program was home ownership. Now 100 percent of this program is home ownership with very little, if any, capital going into rental. The reason for that shift was a cost to government and people wanting to become more independent. Also, what was discovered at that time was that a lot of times elders are being abused by people and were getting stuck holding the bill. At that time, the government of the day made the decision that elders would not pay rent in public housing units. Any people living with the elders that were wage earners would pay rent directly to the Housing Authority, but not through the elder, so you did not put that hardship on them. Will the Minister assure me that this government and your department or your Housing Corporation is not looking at again charging rent to our elders and that you will leave that program in place?
Don Morin on Committee Motion 8-13(7): Housing Funding Targeted For Aboriginal Housing (nwthc)
In the Legislative Assembly on April 26th, 1999. See this statement in context.
Committee Motion 8-13(7): Housing Funding Targeted For Aboriginal Housing (nwthc)
Item 20: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
April 25th, 1999
Page 343
Don Morin Tu Nedhe
See context to find out what was said next.