Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Thank you. Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one more clarification. Since turning over the funds, it's created a lot of problems. I think they've seen that. I think the local housing organizations are seeing a problem with that. It's mainly because ECE can't come out with that money to pay upfront for the units alone. They are having problems in that regard. If the local housing boards give the approval to these people already to complete their schooling, will they be able to go back to their units, forgetting the three months that we already talked about? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Madam Chair, if it's for a short period of time, quite likely they would go back to their own units, but if they are away at school for two years, for example, then that public housing unit may have been in high demand by someone else and we have to allocate it to someone else. Hopefully when they come back after their schooling, we will be able to work something out with them. I don't think we would keep a public housing unit available and open for two years, for example, for a training program. We don't have that much housing.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This will be my last follow-up. I am curious if ECE provides the funds for the rental subsidies. I am just wondering, does that mean if the students are gone for over two years, that the Housing Corporation will shut down those units automatically? I think what I am saying is if there is no one on the list right now, but these people are in school, does that make the Housing Corporation shut the units down? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Madam Chair, no, we would not shut it down or board it up and close it at all. If there is no waiting list, then, as I said earlier, we could give approval for the student to continue to maintain occupancy or ownership of that unit. If there is a demand for housing, though, we might put someone else in there, maybe a teacher in there. We might put somebody in that unit. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you. Does that mean that the tenant will have to sign an agreement with the Housing Corporation, so that they can supposedly hand it over to another client that requires it?

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Madam Chair, yes, if the student wanted to come back to that unit, they would have to come up with some kind of agreement. Again, this would be a case-by-case situation we deal with. There could be an agreement between ourselves, ECE and the student to arrange that.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Public Housing Program funding, operation expenditures summary, $36.895 million.

Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I have a quick question on maintenance and repairs of $8.402 million from $8.804 million. The $400,000 reduction, I guess just from my experience with dealing with LHOs and talking with LHOs and public housing clients, I was just going over some of my LHOs' audited financial statements from year to year and the maintenance and repairs budget has gone down, cut in half over the last two or three years. I think one of the main reasons why people just don't pay their rent is because they just don't get the maintenance and repairs that they require from the LHOs. The LHOs say we just don't have the money to carry out all these repairs or these maintenance requests. I think if we did have more resources, even human resources in housing maintenance areas in these smaller communities, people would be more inclined to pay rent if they can phone the LHO and get their oven elements or furnace nozzles changed in a timely manner and not be put off for months and months to get a window replaced or a door fixed or any kind of minor repairs. That irks people in saying the LHO doesn't care. I think putting less money into maintenance and repairs, we just keep the problem of rental collection more difficult for the LHOs to collect. I think it's a big item on the grants and contributions side along with even the electrical, power and heating fuel. I don't know why the budget has gone down in heating fuel since heating fuel has gone up. It probably won't go down any time soon.

So the LHOs have to start moving money around in order to come out with a balanced budget. A lot of them are looking at deficits which they eat up and pass onto the public housing clients through cutting out maintenance orders or repair orders and stuff like that to save a dollar and balance their budget. So I really think the department should have put more dollars into maintenance and repairs and also ensure that these maintenance and repair dollars at the LHO level are actually going into maintenance and repairs and not into travel for staff and other things that people point out in the communities...That's just a point I want to make on how this rental collection could be easier, given the fact that we have more maintainers out there and more repairs being done at the LHO level. I just want to ask the president how his dialogue with the LHOs at the steering committee level is coming up with recommendations to address this really tough issue of rent collections. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's always an issue, how much do we put in for repair and maintenance. This fund for maintenance and repairs is meant for preventative repairs to make sure the houses are maintained at a good level. The challenge we always have is we do spend more money than we want on tenant damages and that eats into it.

We could, and this is one I have made a note of, we will look at it in future years. Do we need to bump up this amount of money more? Right now, we give them the same kind of increases we do for a government. For example, for all the wages, all the salary costs, we've given three percent. If it's not enough, it is an issue we have to deal with.

The issue on heating fuel, that we've covered the actual cost. If the heating costs go up, then we will cover either through the Housing Corporation or ECE through the subsidy. That isn't an issue that the LHOs or the people would have to be too worried about.

In terms of working with the steering committee, Madam Chair, the Member asked if Mr. Polakoff would give a summary of how things were working out and their dialogues. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Polakoff.

Thank you, Mr. Polakoff. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick follow-up. I understand the challenge of trying to keep every house up to a certain standard, but every year that the maintenance and repair budget comes along, all of these houses have gotten a year older. Public housing does go through a lot of wear and tear during the course of one year. The condition ratings may not change due to the fact that a lot of these units don't get visited every year, which they should. Condition ratings should be updated every year. A lot of LHOs just fill out a lot of condition ratings and they leave them all the same from year to year, thus giving the government the impression that these units are pretty much up to standard, therefore, not getting any more money in maintenance and repairs. But I am sure Mr. Polakoff is well aware of that.

I just want to ask a quick question about the administration funding. With respect to training dollars for getting more community housing maintainers at the ground level in the communities, is any training dollars that an LHO wants to put towards apprentice programs have to come out of their administration budget, or is there a separate program in the Housing Corp department that would provide funding for LHOs to say we want to take on two apprentices every year or every three years, a plumber and a carpenter who we can work with so we can get repairs done in a timely manner? Is there any avenue besides the administration that's allocated in this budget? Thank you.