Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There were a wide range of comments that were brought up and obviously housing is an issue that’s felt very strongly about in the communities.
Mr. Menicoche was speaking about the mould in some of the units. Most of the technical staff in the regions now do have mould remediation training, so they’re getting educated on how to deal with the mould issue.
The comments made by Mr. Hawkins on the barrier-free units, he talked about a strategy but a strategy is a report and we realize that we have probably 300 barrier-free units in our public housing inventory. For those that are living in private housing that apply for the CARE program and qualify, if they are a disabled person, the money that they would qualify for doubles what most people would qualify for, up to a maximum of $180,000 to convert their unit into a barrier-free unit, which I think would go a long way in assisting them with their quality of life.
There was a lot of discussion on arrears. Arrears always seems to be one of the big problems that we hear about across the Northwest Territories and is one that my office gets a lot of calls about is the amount of arrears and I can’t qualify for a program. We have to understand that the Housing Corp has gone a long way into trying to assist most people with homeownership. A lot of the homeownership that they’re applying to get repaired are units that were given to them originally by the Housing Corporation, and you have a lot of folks out there that honour their commitment, that make their regular payments. It must be discouraging for them to hear, too, that folks that are not honouring their commitment or asking for forgiveness of their loans when they’ve been paying faithfully for 25, 30 years. I think that’s one of the reasons that we find ourselves $10 million in arrears in the mortgage file. Recognizing that, the Housing Corporation also recognizes that work needs to be done on some of the units that these folks have. So as part of the CARE, the home repair program, they’ve allowed up to $5,000 in arrears. So that would help a lot of people. If you’re $5,000 in arrears, then you could qualify for a repair program.
The CMHC funding, that’s always going to be an issue. This is a national issue; 650,000 units across Canada. A business case is being developed for Parliament to make them realize that this money is still needed in all jurisdictions. We hear about the core need groups and the community needs survey we did will go a long way in determining our infrastructure allocation for the next budget. This particular budget that we’re dealing with now has already been set, so we’re going to use this information that we gather to plan for our 2011-12 fiscal year. So those communities that are in higher
core need will obviously be given more of a priority in allocating infrastructure projects. That goes to some of Mr. Jacobson’s points that he’s got a community that needs units and if it’s identified as part of the community survey, the core needs survey, then they would be given a priority.
I’m just trying to go down the list here. Mr. Krutko’s remarks on the Auditor General. I think we’re updating committee here quite shortly. I mentioned before that 2010-11, this fiscal year there will be a review done as per the Auditor General’s recommendations. I think this is going to be year three so we’ll have a review of all the programs, the Housing Choices programs and our programs across… The log houses, we quite agree. I mean, I’d like to see more log houses, but now with the crunch on dollars, it’s getting to be a little more difficult. If there’s a business case that could be made for doing it cheaper than stick-built then it’s something that we’re always willing to look at. Talking about local suppliers of lumber, I know with the wood miser and everything it would be awfully difficult because building material has to meet a certain standard right down to the moisture content. That’s why a lot of the stick-built material comes in. So a business case mostly for the log houses.
The Elders on the Land program, I mean, we agree, there’s a lot of good benefit to having that. Also, it has to be, I think one of the stipulations is it has to be their primary residence. We have a lot of folks out there that have had some of the program dollars for Elders on the Land, but it’s not their primary residence. It’s basically a cabin in the bush. I mean, we’d love to see more people out on the land. If that’s their primary residence, then we’d be willing to work with them.
We hear a lot about the frustration of the way the Housing Corporation operates sometimes. Most of the frustration is around arrears and it’s frustrating on our part to have to tell a Member that we’ve received a call from... Well, first of all, a person didn’t apply and then they had arrears and if we start overlooking the arrears, we are setting a very expensive precedent. Everyone will say why should I bother paying and then we’ll have an issue where we will have more money in arrears. I would think we need to be fair to everyone and we try to be as fair as possible. We’ve proven that with allowing up to $5,000 arrears in the Home Repair Program, but we need to be fair to all those out there that they are honouring their commitments, they are paying quite regularly. We have public housing tenants all across the Northwest Territories that are faithfully paying. So we have to make sure that we are fair to everybody and we send the right message out there.
The Housing Corp has a huge responsibility in providing homeownership but also tenants and clients have a huge responsibility in honouring the
commitments, and I think when they do that, we’ll see an improvement. Just imagine how much more we could do with all the money that are outstanding in arrears.
So, Mr. Chair, I hope I have been able to address some of the Members’ questions and concerns. I think I’ve touched on just about all of them and I’m sure I’ll have more comments and questions as we go through page by page. Thank you, Mr. Chair.