Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, this program, the affordable housing initiative money is for a three-year period; from 2006-07, '07-08 and '08-09. So by the end of March '09 it will be the end of the program unless a new one is negotiated, but this is one-time three-year funding.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Minister, the increase of funding for our affordable housing initiative in the Northwest Territories, I want to ask the Minister with regard to reducing the core need throughout the Northwest Territories. Is the Minister aware that recent past reports have indicated that the people in my region, the Sahtu region, had a high core need followed by the region of Nahendeh? Can the Minister advise me today if this number is decreasing over the years and we will see a decrease where it will be an acceptable, satisfactory level at least for me as an MLA and the people of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can assure the Member that the core need will go down in the Sahtu. For example, we are putting in 94 units over three years. The core need in that region is...Do we know what it is? It will be reduced by 94 units less the number of new people who move in and so on. In total, putting 530 living units in the Territories with a core need of about 2,300 units should make a noticeable difference. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. There were 240 houses in need in the Sahtu. We are putting in 94. So it will help. It isn't going to solve the problem, but it will make a difference.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, the high core needs in my region, as in other regions, we have different needs and different areas of concern and I wanted to commend the Minister just on taking the risk of having some of these units be brought into my region due to the limitation of our winter roads and the extra care to bring these units into our region because of what we are faced with in my region as opposed to the regions having an all-weather road here.

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask the Minister, in terms of reducing the core need and hoping we get the point where we could somewhat feel comfortable in my region, is the Minister working and his staff working with my region in terms of looking at some creative solutions like you guys mentioned, in terms of bringing in these units before the winter road closes? Otherwise we have to wait for the barge and all the other things that go along with delays. I think that's good thinking. It's proper thinking. It shows leadership.

I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of working with our region on these specific areas that need to be addressed from the point of view of the Sahtu region, at least. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member and all Members' support in stepping out ahead and taking some risk in taking units into areas like the Sahtu. It's not tolerable, in our view, to have, in Colville Lake for example, 76 percent core need. So the only way of getting them in is with winter road or by flying them in. So we have to step out in front and it's true in the other communities as well. Now we're working much closer with the communities. In Deline, for example, where we've got 42 percent core need, the community corporation is building a five-plex on their own. So we'll continue to work with all of the communities to work toward getting that core need down to where it should be. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Minister also commented on his opening statement to us here, on page 2 he talked about community affairs on land requirements with the Department of MACA. Are the department and the NWT Housing Corporation working very close, because there's land officers' positions in our region that you need to have the left hand letting the right hand know about these land issues in our small communities that need to be developed and I guess some more forward thinking in terms of getting these lots available in all of our communities? The Minister indicated a number of units being considered for the Sahtu region over the next three years, that requires a lot of work. So I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of I need to see something I guess in terms of, for my own satisfaction, give me something general. So I would like to ask the Minister in terms of his type of support he's getting from his staff to see that land will be ready, land will be available for units that are planned for the communities that are indicated for the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we realize that we have to work very closely with the community and community leadership and also with MACA in order to meet the land needs to keep up with our schedule for new houses. We are working closely, and a good example is the project we're working on in Good Hope to develop a 30 lot subdivision. Those are important arrangements. We've also made this a priority with our regional management committee, because it does involve more than just the corporation to make sure that we have the land. If we don't have the land, we can't build the houses. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my last one will be a comment on my last question, but I wanted to ask the Minister here in terms of the units we have now available for our people that are through the rental units and some of these rental units, some of the owners have, and I think the Minister made some comments at least to ourselves as a committee that these units could be sold to people who have lived in them for 20 or 25 years and they may have some difficulty. I think the Minister has alluded to some of the new programs that may help alleviate some of these issues to have renters become homeowners. I think that's very wise. I think it's a real good move to start having people now take responsibility for their homes and to start taking the ownership of these homes now and not have this dependency be so strong. So I think the Minister has a tough job ahead of him in terms of how do we uncreate that dependency? We have an interdependency in terms of homeownership. So I think he's going to have a challenging time to have these units...They should be only for people that really need them like the elderly people, people who are disabled. But people that could own their home should really own their homes now. We have to create that sense of independence of ownership for these homeowners, because right now we have too many people dependent on units. So I just want to leave that with the Minister. I don't know if there's a question there, Mr. Chair, I know my time is up. So I wanted to leave that for him. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's exactly our objective, is to get as many people back into homeownership as possible. It is a huge job. We do have some of our reorganization or consolidation programs set up so that we, number one, through the STEP program we're able to help people with the education side of how to manage a home, financial planning and so on, those modules. Second is we've got the Transitional Lease Program through the HELP program that will help people to make that transition into homeownership. Mr. Chairman, it will be a task that's going to take more than a year, it's going to take time, but I think people want to be independent, they want to be self-reliant and we're going to focus our efforts and that of the LHOs to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments, next I have Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to pick up on the line of questioning that we ran out of time on and that was on the market housing initiative. The Minister advised of certain numbers of houses that had been built and then leased out and rented. The information I was looking for though, Mr. Chairman, was how many of these 42 units actually went to the intended emergency requirement, which were nurses and teachers? We went through quite a bit of work to try to get these houses in place as soon as we could for these people, but I know that as we were going through the implementation, there were issues regarding the cost of the units, whether or not they were furnished, whether or not they were set up on time and we were having difficulties serving the intended tenant group. Just how are we doing now? Out of these 42 units, how many have gone to the teachers and nurses in our communities, Madam Chair?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. All of the units in phase one, except for three, are being rented. Now they could be rented by a nurse, by a teacher, by a person working in the community for the band, but they're there for the purpose. The purpose was to increase the amount of market housing. These people are paying market prices for their houses. Three of the units were sold to someone else, and even in that way they helped to meet a housing shortage in that community because somebody now is living in a house that they bought. Now three of the ones, when I say that out of the 22 houses three are on a Supported Lease Program, which one of our objectives is to get people into homeownership, so they're being rented, they're the Supported Lease Program, three are sold, the rest are rented. Did you want me to finish answering? Maybe I'm off track here, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Braden.

Madam Chair, the Legislature undertook to finance this project on an emergency basis because we were having trouble housing essential workers in communities. The objective was not, when the program was first brought to us, was not to create a housing market in these tiny communities. Don't give me that. I wouldn't have bought that in the first place. We wanted units in there so teachers and nurses could get a good place to stay and these communities would be able to stay there. I don't care if they're rented or leased or sold to other workers in the community. That was not the objective that was brought to this House and not the reason we approved it. Can the Minister tell us yes or no or how many nurses and teachers are housed through the 42 units put on the ground for the market housing initiative? If he can't advise of that information, that's fine, perhaps he can at a later date, but I want to know did it work to satisfy the initial objective, Madam Chair?