Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to see that there is more money being put into repairs and renovations by NWT Housing Corporation. I think that is a substantial increase from when this government first started. I do believe that the original repair and renovation budget was $792,000. It went up to $2.1 million and then now to $8 million, so this is very good news.
I hope that the money is able to get out to communities that have the higher needs and up to the groups that have the higher needs as well. When I speak of the groups with higher needs, I am referring to the different groups that I always felt that the corporation should be strategizing towards addressing the core need groups, and the different core need groups being seniors, families, couples and single people. If we look at the core needs across the Territories, although I didn’t review the needs for what was tabled yesterday, I don’t know how the core needs are reported. My assumption is that core needs are continuing to be reported in that way where there is a difference between seniors, singles, families and so on and so forth. My feeling is that, if the corporation uses strategy to approach the different core need areas or the core need groups, then I think they would go a ways to actually addressing the core need issues in a better fashion, I do believe. Although this is not about the needs survey, this is about the main estimates. I realize that.
Of course, it is a disappointment to see that the needs have grown from 16 percent to 9 percent. My understanding is that the needs have dropped substantially here in the city of Yellowknife. I guess when you see that number, it is kind of a scary thought because if you have half of your households in the Northwest Territories located in the city of Yellowknife and the core needs in Yellowknife drops from 11 percent down to 5 percent, say, as a rough estimate, that is a 6 percent drop in half of the households across the Territories. If there is an overall increase of 3 percent, then of course I am saying that then there must be a 9 percent increase outside of Yellowknife. That is just doing the rough math on that, right? That is a real disappointment. That is essentially what I have been standing up in the House over the last two-plus years and saying.
Does the Housing Corporation have a strategy that is actually designed to lower core needs?
The responses I have been getting is we have these four programs. I keep saying, they don’t seem to be working. When you build a home in Fort Resolution and nobody moves into it and when you build a home in Fort Resolution or Lutselk’e and a teacher that has a high paying job moves into it, then I have no issue with housing teachers. Don’t get me wrong. They need housing too, but that does zero to address the core needs issue. That is a $250,000 expenditure that does nothing to the core need. That is what my issue is. I have been saying all along. We have to have a strategy that addresses the core needs by community.
The communities that have the highest need, you have to go in there, develop a strategy that addresses that issue. You have to take a look at the core need groups.
Seniors still continue to be the highest core need across the Territory. We have to have a strategy to address the core needs of seniors. The families are having the highest core need issue. If small community families and small communities have the highest core need issues, then the Housing Corporation, if they are serious about lowering the core need and not just reporting it, have to have a strategy to address it. I have yet to see or hear of such a strategy.
We can’t continue to say we have programs that are addressing this issue and have vacant houses right across the Territories. If we are going to pump all our money into vacant units or pump our money into units that eventually become market housing units in small communities, we do nothing to address the core needs issue.
We have people that are very poor in the small communities. We have very low employment rates in small communities. However, they might have arrears with housing. They might have arrears with land tax, lease arrears, whatever they do have. All I do know is that the income they have only takes them from month to month. They have arrears and are not addressing those.
We see those commercials on TV. Food or shelter: one million Canadians can’t afford both. The Northwest Territories percentage of that is much higher. I am assuming over one million families across the country is based on the fact that we have 30-some-odd million people in Canada, but that ratio is much higher in the Northwest Territories. We are supposed to be addressing those issues.
It is not just an income issue. It is in a lot of cases these guys have no income. They are getting income support. They have only pensions as a fixed income. And yet the Housing Corporation
does not have a strategy, unless I am wrong and the Housing Corporation does have a strategy and they are going to present it to us saying, this is how we are going to address the high core need issue in Lutselk’e. This is how we are going to address the high needs core issue in Fort Resolution. That would be something that I would love to hear. I would like to hear how that strategy is going to roll out and how we are going to look at each of those groups and address those issues.
Those strategies work because they applied. The strategic planning is applied. They are worked on all the time and they work. You go after those issues. You don’t develop a program and throw the program out there for the people in the field to deliver, and you don’t build empty houses and think that you are addressing houses that remain vacant and think that you are actually addressing a core need issues. I don’t believe that is the way to go.
I will have questions through the detail of the corporation, but it is probably questions that I have asked all along. Now I think I have come to a point where, and I made Member’s statements in here saying I am frustrated with the process.
The one area where it is very difficult to achieve success as an MLA when you are trying to work for you people is in housing, and that is because the Housing Corporation, in my opinion, does not have a strategy to address issues, no strategy to address core need issues dealing with the people. The Housing Corporation has regional staff. The regional staff are fairly close to the communities, the regions are fairly small, districts are fairly small. It is not a huge district which are understaffed. They have fairly small districts and they have a fairly decent staff complement. It is just that people have to get out of their offices, go into the communities and get to know the people.
As a program officer, they are dealing with 100 units in Lutselk’e, 200 units in Fort Resolution. They should be able to visit every household and have a good information session with every family in Tu Nedhe without having any problem at all, but that is not what happens. I think my time is up, Mr. Chairman, so I will leave the rest of my comments for the detail. Thank you.