Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I would like to thank the Member for his concerns and issues because I think it is important to realize that we can't develop social housing, because social housing has been discontinued since 1992. It's almost 13 years ago that the federal government got out of building social housing. I believe that is one of the main problems that we are running into in the Northwest Territories, because that program is not delivered anywhere in Canada anymore. Because of that, we are having such a housing crisis, not only here in the North, but also all across Canada because there are no more federal dollars expended for social housing.
Another major challenge that we face, especially in the Member's riding, is we don't have local housing authorities in all communities. We have some 23 local housing authorities, but there are still 10 communities out there that we don't have a presence in. Most of those communities are in the Nahendeh area and also in the small communities like Colville Lake and other communities in the territory. That again is another arrangement that we have to try to work through, because we don't have social housing stock or public housing in these communities. In Fort Liard, there was a federal program that developed Kotaneelee housing, which was delivered through CMHC in Ottawa. Again it is a program that they walked away from and we got stuck holding the bag. Now, because of that, it's costing us about $2 million just to deal with the mould problem that is there in the community.
One of the ways that we can get around that is through either establishing local housing authorities in those communities or else establishing universal partnership agreements with the local community council or the band council to look at taking over managing housing in those communities, so that we can look at delivering housing programs in those communities. Right now the way the programs are being delivered, especially in a lot of the smaller communities, is application-based programs. Right now, we have in the budget some $8.6 million for IHP and home repair programs. Most of the expenditures that are going into the Member's riding are for those types of programs, such as IHP, which is Independent Housing Programs that people applied on.
Again, it's about $1 million that is going into the Member's riding for the IHP; in all, about $140,000 for home repair programs. Again, the challenge that we face is that we have to get away from the idea that because the Housing Corporation does not have a local presence, we still have to find a way to deliver housing in those communities. With regard to the Member's concern regarding core needs; especially in the community that we designate through the needs survey, there was a motion passed in this House because of the surveys that we have done. We have 20 communities in the Northwest Territories that fall well in excess of 30 percent. In some cases, using
Colville Lake and Wrigley -- Colville Lake is at 67 percent and Wrigley is 50 percent -- roughly 50 percent of the people in the community of Wrigley are in need of housing.
Again in order to meet that demand, we have to either make a major investment in housing and decide in order to bring these units down just to meet the 30 percent level, never mind trying to exceed it, we need about 188 houses for these 20 communities to get them below that 30 percent core need. That is a major investment; somewhere in excess of $20 million. Those are the types of things that we have to work on.
In regard to the mould -- I know we had this debate in the House -- we had a professional person go in there and do a report on the mould problem in Wrigley and through that he made recommendations on how to deal with the problem. We have already committed financial dollars to this program and we have already put the materials on order, as the Member knows. We are waiting for the band in Fort Liard, in regard to Beaver Enterprises, to give us a proposal for a negotiated contract.
Again we are working on it, but, as the Member mentioned, there is a problem when people go from social housing into homeownership. We do have different programs in regard to a Supported Lease Program. This is for those people who are in social housing that want to purchase the unit that they are in. It is a two-year transitional process. Within that two years, you work with the tenant to really get an understanding of what it really means to be a homeowner. Every month you get him to pay the power bill, or pay the water bill, or pay the fuel bill and make them aware that these are actually costs that you are going to have to be responsible for when you become a homeowner. So they can do it while they are still in social housing and do a two-year transitional process. Also work with them to find where they can get a mortgage to either mortgage the purchase of the unit that they are in or work them into a program that is going to be able to assist them, such as EDAP.
That is one of the ways we are trying to work people into homeownership but, again, it comes back all the way to our core needs in a lot of these communities. That is some of the responses to the Member's questions. Thank you.