The district staff are very hardworking people and sometimes they come into the community and they see a lot of people and sometimes it’s more than their time on the ground there. So sometimes they see a few people and then have to go, you know. These people that work at the district office, I know they put their hearts into their work, they’re good people, and I want to say that when they come in, I’m hoping that they would have someone there with them that would help them, because the other staff from the local housing authorities are pretty busy, so when they come in to see the people, they say to this old lady or this old gentleman, you need a new toilet or you need a new tub, you need to get it fixed, and then they leave. But then nothing happens for a month or two. It’s still very hard for the old people to take a shower or a bath. It may not seem very much for us

young people, but for the old people it’s a real concern. We know their heart is to fix it and get it done.

Now, Mr. Polakoff was saying that if we missed them, then they have to wait for another intake. I guess what I’m asking in my request is to have someone dedicated from the district office just to look after the seniors, because you’ve got one person coming into Tulita or Good Hope, that person is pretty busy going house to house with applications and asking questions. And you know next time, well, they have to leave or sometimes the people are not in town, they’re in the bush and there’s nobody there. Like in Good Hope where they went to see this elder. This elder, part of his life is on the land. How come this person didn’t know that this old man was on the land with his wife? We’ve got to have some kind of communication that’s really strong in terms of saying to our elders that someone needs to work with them more strongly. That’s why I keep advocating for someone within the Housing to have an elders position to look after our elders on everything with housing. For us young people my age it’s okay, but especially for the elderly people we need to really work with them a little more strongly in terms of the services that we are doing for them.

I want to ask again with Housing here, what Mr. Polakoff is saying, having someone dedicated to explaining to them the application, because some of them get turned down because of land tenure. The Minister and I had an exchange yesterday in terms of sometimes an application doesn’t make it through because of some other issues. I’m just thinking that we need to have a little more consideration for our older people. That’s who I’m speaking for. I’m thinking about this older lady in Tulita who has a real hard time to take a bath, just to lift her leg over the bathtub there. It’s hard for her, but nobody’s doing anything to fix her bathtub. And that’s only one. There are many across my region that are in that situation.

I certainly support the workers going in there. Their intentions are good. There’s only so much money dedicated for each community and so there are a lot of needs that need to be met in my region. I want to ask Mr. Minister about taking care of the older people first. At the same time, he’s got to juggle how to take care of the other people. However, I’m speaking now for just for the old people on this one issue here. I want to just give a chance for the Minister to make a comment on my comments here.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I think Housing goes to great lengths to try and accommodate all our seniors and try to help them

out as much as we can. If you look at the public housing portfolio, seniors over 60 don’t pay any rent, so that helps them out quite a bit. We have the Senior Preventative Repair Program. We have the Seniors Repair Program. I have even offered, as we have folks go into the communities, to have someone accompany them that speaks the first language in the community so the seniors are better able to understand some of the programs that we offer. We ask people -- and this would apply to everybody -- if they need something done to their house, you know, they’d have to give us a call and then when our people get in there they would go and see them.

I would have to follow up on that, but I’m sure our staff folks in the regions make it to every place that makes an inquiry or wants someone to come have a look at their house or possibly filling out an application. We have had cases where we’ve helped seniors even though it wasn’t the intake period. There were some emergencies that needed to be taken care of. I think Housing is very respectful of our seniors and our seniors’ needs, and I think we go to great lengths to try and accommodate our seniors in the Northwest Territories as much as we can.

The communication part of it, we will let them know when we are coming into town and when we’re able to take applications. If they were to phone the district office and say I’m going to be out of town, then maybe some accommodations could be made, but it works both ways. I think we’ve been doing that lately, is publicizing when we get into town and when the application process is. I know during this past application process in October, from what I’ve seen and what I’m reading in the papers and reading signs in the community, it was well advertised, so we had a fairly good uptake. But, I mean, I can assure the Member and all Members that we take looking after our seniors very seriously with the NWT Housing Corporation, and I think we’ve proven that in the past and we’ll continue to work closely with and for seniors in the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Next on my list is Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just want to go over a couple of things that I mentioned in my opening comments. Most particularly what’s troubling for me in my last tour was that there is no seniors program specifically designed for seniors. It really came to light on a couple occasions where there’s one senior, he had a broken furnace, he had a broken hot water tank, so we asked the Housing Corporation about emergency repairs and it turns out that he is probably like many other people throughout the North where he has exhausted all programming areas that the Housing Corporation has, like CARE,

RRAP or ERP. He used every known program that is out there to help repair his house and now he has to use his old age security to pay for much needed repairs to his furnace, which is up and running. I don’t believe the hot water tank was, but, like I said, this may be a typical situation. I know that before, we did have a seniors home repair subsidy especially for these types of situations. The Minister can correct me, but I don’t believe it was a one-time access either. This is about small, little repairs that elders and seniors need in small, remote communities. In larger communities, if you just have to replace a filter or a pump, it is easy to do, but in the smaller communities there is a cost of transportation, and timing becomes an issue too. Then there will be additional freight costs if there is an actual charter that had to be done to fly someone in to do the repair.

I believe it had worked well. I don’t know when the Seniors Repair Program existed or why it was cancelled, because I had been educating elders and seniors in the past few years and I am supportive of them, but the response I get is thank you very much for the inquiry, but we don’t have a specific seniors program. They are going to have to file an application with everybody else under these other programs.

I think we only have one senior kind of related program. I think that is when they help clean the furnaces annually, which is a good program. I certainly would like to see more of it. Our seniors should not be relegated to the rest of the population. I believe that we should have a seniors home-specific repair program. I look forward to working with the department, if we can do something about that and move towards that.

Another thing about district operations that I believe will be helpful, I really have faith in this appeal process that will be undertaken on April 1st . The

Minister said April 1st is the deadline. It would be

nice to see some programming detail about that, as MLA, or perhaps he just has to send it over to the Social Programs committee. I certainly would like to see a mechanism on how it would work, especially addressing old arrears, Mr. Chairman. That is a concern.

Many of my constituents are applying for programming based on arrears, which is a guideline and a policy that they cannot access certain programs unless they address those arrears. The mortgage repayment plan is a very great idea. Some people do get behind and fall into arrears. Here is the opportunity to refinance it and reprofile it. There are some cases, I think actually there are many cases where the constituent or the client is actually disputing work that had happened or work that didn’t happen, value for work, construction techniques and they are of the mind that I am not paying until this is resolved, but now it is 15 years

old. How do we go back that far and give them a fair hearing, Mr. Chairman? How do we give them a fair place for them to speak their case? I have always said that they are stating their case to the person that told them no in the first place. I don’t believe that is very fair. I believe that they deserve to be heard. The facts should be put on the table, access to as much information as they can and really give this appeals process a good go, because that is all the constituents are asking for. I would like to see what kind of mechanism there is to address a wrong if indeed the appeals process does feel they are wrong. My thinking about it is that if they had $15,000 worth of work 10 years ago and there really was the case that only $7,000 got done, but on the Housing Corporation’s books it shows $15,000, how do you address that? I believe the constituent believes, as well, I don’t mind paying for $7,000 worth of work, but my bill says $15,000, Mr. Chairman. So how do they address that? That is just one example of how I believe that appeals system can work and it is going to be independent as well. They really have to have an independent way to look and see how they best address their concerns, Mr. Chairman. With that, I will give the Minister an opportunity to respond on those two issues there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, the Member is correct when he talks about the senior and I will respond to Mr. Yakeleya’s concern about the seniors and how I feel we go to great lengths to make sure our seniors are well taken care of. We do run into some cases. We do hear a case here and there. I think for the most part within our seniors we have across the Northwest Territories, a lot of those are living in their own homes. I think we look after them quite well.

The Member mentioned the preventative maintenance program and talking about all the number of programs that a particular individual had access to over the years and to hear that there is still a furnace issue or there is still a maintenance problem in the unit. I would have to follow up on that and see why someone that would access every program would still be needing maintenance.

Having said that, there is still an opportunity for the preventative maintenance. It is up to $2,000 for minor maintenance work around seniors. Seniors are also able to qualify for care. If there was some work that needed to be done to their unit to make it a little more handicap friendly, it would fall under this particular program. We go to great lengths.

The one that the Member has said that a person wants to dispute the work that was done on their house, saying that they applied and got $15,000 approval and they got $7,000 work, I would have to follow up on that. That is going quite a ways back,

but I would think that there would have been a contract that was let for probably $15,000, so there is obviously a paper trail there somewhere and someone saying that the work wasn’t done right so I am not going to pay, again there is a dispute that the Member had mentioned.

I, too, would say we have technical people go in. They would inspect the work that was done by a contractor if a house was built. They would go in there. They would obviously have to sign it off before we give occupancy. I think there are a lot of cases and maybe there are some legitimate cases out there, but to say that the work wasn’t done properly unless they were a certified tradesperson, maybe it wasn’t done the way they had wanted or expected, but the bottom line it was still done according to the specs that we laid out to the contractor, so our technical people would have had to sign it off. When the clients are given the unit, I would assume that there is also an opportunity when they go through the unit with one of the programs people to have a look at the unit and make sure that everything was done according to specs.

As far as the appeal committee, I can assure the Member that it will be a pretty fairly independent committee. I think we are going to have one person from the NWT Housing Corporation acting as chair of the committee but they will have no voting privileges. It is going to be a fairly independent appeals mechanism committee. We are looking forward to seeing how that rolls out. For folks that question some of the decisions, some of the things that were made in their homeownership units, they obviously have a chance to go through this appeals committee and maybe this would be beneficial to -- and I think I may have spoken to committee about it -- give committee probably a quick update on how we expect this thing to work and how we expect this to roll out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next on my list is Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to talk on the program side. I think that we have to be realistic that we notice there is a decline in grants and contributions. Again, there is definitely an area of need. We’ve seen the latest survey from 2009 which definitely identifies areas of inadequacy, core need, looking at condition ratings and those different forms. I think that we have to be fair to the process. I’ve had constituents complain to me, saying that it’s not fair that you see the same people getting the same programs over and over and over and they’ve been applying year after year, after year and every year that they reapply their homes are deteriorating more every year. I think we have to find a system that’s fair, transparent, but more importantly, that it really meets the adequacy

and the core housing challenges we face in a lot of the communities.

A lot of the houses that we have in our communities were built back in the ‘60s and ‘70s and they are coming into an era where they need major retrofits. I think we have to be realistic that those people require those supports and I think it’s not fair to them that they apply but don’t seem to get the support that the department puts in place.

Again, I think it’s something that we have to be aware of. I’d like to know, do we actually track the core needs by community in regard to the conditions of the houses in those communities and allocate funding accordingly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ve said we’ve used those numbers, especially in some of the communities where the need is highest, we’re hoping to use those numbers to use it as a basis for allocating our resources in the future. I think the report came out last year. So this particular year we’ve tried to gear as many resources to some of the communities in higher need. So we’re hoping to be able to take care of some of the repairs that are going on in the community.

One thing I need to point out, Mr. Chair, is we’ve had homeownership units across the Northwest Territories for the last number of years and my understanding of a homeowner is once you were given one of these programs, and I keep meaning to look at the contract because I would have assumed it would say in there that you’re responsible for all the maintenance in your unit. In theory that was very good. What we’ve seen was a lot of the HAP clients, a lot of those that had to build their own units, they’ve looked after their units pretty good because they put a lot of sweat equity into it, but we’re having a lot of people now, we’re giving them units and they’re expecting us to do the maintenance. I mean, we’ll assist where possible, but I think what happened was we started doing a bit of maintenance on units that we had given to clients and then it just became an expectation. So we’re having to live with it now.

You see some clients out there that we never hear from. Their roof may need fixing, but they understand that it’s their responsibility as a homeowner to fix that roof. We work with those that want to apply for a homeownership loan and that where they make a payment back. We have no problem working with folks like that because we have a lot of folks where there’s a forgivable portion of it, but there’s also a portion that they pay back. So we continue to try and work with all those in the communities that need assistance.

Going back to the Member’s original point -- and I kind of went off on a rabbit trail, but going back to the Member’s original point -- we are trying to use the numbers that came out of the core needs survey to allocate our resources to some of the communities that are in most need. Thank you.

I’ll come back to this question, but I’ll ask another one. I think one of the programs especially on the program officer side, it seems like they’re all in the regional centres and I think this might be a perfect opportunity for this government to decentralize some of those positions from the regional districts to the communities that they serve. That’s something that we should consider looking at, because I think in my riding I have two people, one serves Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson, the other one serves Aklavik, but they both live in Inuvik. I think that whenever possible if it’s possible that those individuals, if they decide to deliver the programs out of those communities, out of, say, their home community, which could be Fort McPherson or Aklavik or whatnot, and they’re qualified to deliver the programs which are presently in the Inuvik headquarter office, because I think this is a perfect opportunity for the people in the communities to have better access to those program staff. Like Mr. Yakeleya mentioned, they come and go and if you don’t get to see them one trip, you’ve got to wait until the next one.

The other thing is that if they’re in your community, they know who their clients are and they can deal with the on a day-to-day basis. More importantly, ensure that the work that is being approved is actually getting done and they’re there in the communities to actually see it happen.

So I’d just like to know, is that something that the department can seriously consider in regard to moving some of these positions into the communities where you have high numbers of clients, where the work is there, that they can operate and shuttle in between those community programs and the regional centres? If they have to go into the regional office, it’s just a simple two-hour drive down the road, it’s not as if it’s a major expense. We have local housing offices in our communities where they can work out of. We have a community office in Tsiigehtchic where we have a sub-office there that’s not being used. So I’d like to ask is that something that we can look at in regard to decentralizing some of these jobs in the regional operations to communities to run those programs and services.

There was a community liaison position that was piloted a couple of years ago and I’m not sure if it still exists, but now they’re having the single-window service centres that they’re trying, and maybe this is one area where they can be of assistance to the NWT Housing Corp.

It’s awfully hard to take folks out of the regional office and maybe move them into the communities. I think we might be better served if we were able to utilize the folks in the communities and be in contact with folks in the regional office.

I mean, we’ve seen a perfect example in one of the other jurisdictions of where they tried to decentralize and they had their finance office in one community and their head office in the other community and I think we’ve seen the $60 million result of that. So we need to try to have them as centralized as possible, but I take the Member’s point, though. It would be good to have folks go out to the communities. I mean, I get a list of all the visits that are into each community and we could utilize these pilot projects that are going to be happening. I think those particular folks that are going to be in the community would probably have to have a pretty good understanding of all the programs that are offered through the government, through the NWT Housing Corp. So I think this is one way that as a Housing Corp we can probably take advantage of this and be a part of this single-service window centre that the government is proposing to try to have in the communities. We’ll see how that works. If there’s a need further down the line to maybe have a liaison person, somebody that’s strictly housing, then that may be something we have to have a look at. But it would be awfully difficult to take the regional staff programs officer, for example, and maybe put them in another community that would be their home base. It possibly could work. I mean, I’d have to have a discussion, we’d have to have people that would want to do that. But our programs people do travel around quite a bit, but there’s opportunity to look at something like that and I’ll commit to the Member that I’ll have that discussion with the Housing Corp and we’ll see what we can accommodate. Thank you.

In regard to my original question, I think that we have to be fair here. I mean, sure, we can say, well, we gave them the housing and they’re responsible to take care of it. We didn’t give them the house. In most cases they applied on it, they won it fairly through an application process and in most cases, like you say, these people have lived in these units going on 30 years. After 30 years of living in a unit it is going to require some major retrofits, regardless if its electrical upgrades or mechanical changeovers. That’s when these people need the help. I think that those are the groups that we should be focusing on when you have people that realize that there are energy retrofits that need to take place and that will make and improve the life of that facility. But when you have people getting programs where you have three or four members in a house making over $250,000, I mean, that’s not fair to other people in their community that are applying for programs and

can’t get it. Especially widows and people that have children and they are struggling. Yet we seem to have not helped those people that really require the help and yet there’s other people taking advantage of programs and services time after time and not helping the people that really need the help.

I think all I’m asking for is that we seriously... Again, you look at the dollars that have been earmarked for grants and contributions, they’re down by $6 million. We have to realize we have less money now than we had before and we have to make sure that we spend it in the best interest of the public and the people that we serve.

I hear the Member’s comments and I’ve heard those comments before, where you get some concerns from the residents in the NWT where somebody has accessed a program and they seem to continue to access those programs where somebody that needs a lot of assistance is not getting it.

I hear the Member’s concern with people who apply for these units, they did apply for the units and we gave them the units and there was a forgivable portion, especially the old HAP units. I’ve asked the corporation, just talking to the two Jeffs here, and I’ve asked if we can come up with the information on a lot of the people who had the original HAP houses and how many of those have accessed some of our programs to get the energy retrofits. Once we pull those numbers together, I’ll share it with the Members. I think that will be a good indication of the assistance we’ve provided to a lot of former HAP clients that have been in there for 15 or 20 years. Once we get that information pulled together, I’ll be sure to pass it on to the Members.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Next on my list is Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions here with regard to reviews. The first one has to do with the rent scale review which I understand is happening. I thought that we had been advised that it’s about... It seems like it’s been in the works for a year and I’d appreciate hearing from the Minister where that review of the rent scale is at. According to the business plan, it’s supposed to be ready for implementation on April 1st . I’d like to know if that’s still the case. Is the

review done yet, I guess is where I’ll start.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Polakoff.

Thanks to the deputy minister, or president, for that information. I’m glad that the Shelter Review Policy has been mentioned. I guess I need to say, first of all, that it’s a little unfortunate that the rent scale review is taking so long. I can understand why it’s being tied in with the Shelter Review Policy, but it is unfortunate that it’s something that Members have been asking for for probably three years now and it’s still not ready to come.

The Shelter Review Policy I fully support. I think it’s something which is long overdue and I think we have many policies with regard to housing that create roadblocks and inhibit people from accessing housing easily and to getting the housing that they need or should have.

I would like to ask about the coordination of the Housing Corporation with other departments when they do this shelter review. I’ve said a number of times in the last while that we need to coordinate our policies across departments, and housing particularly ties in with income support. It ties in with Health and Social Services in terms of parents who’ve had their children apprehended and lose their home because they no longer have their children, they get the kids back and they don’t have a home where they can accommodate the children. There’s any number of situations where the housing policies and/or the policies of another department impact on housing that people need and are trying to get.

To the Minister: what kind of coordination will there be through all departments of the government when you’re doing this shelter review?

Thanks for that information. I’m really glad to hear that it’s going to be a broad review. I just would like to also point out that I would hope that the Housing Corporation is going to keep in their sites that their review can have a large impact on those who are struggling with poverty and that it can be tied into our Anti-Poverty Strategy which we’re also working on.

I do want to comment on the need for seniors to have funding to assist them with their homes. It’s been mentioned by a couple of Members already. I think the Housing Corporation ought to seriously consider targeted funding for seniors. Whether it be preventive maintenance or whether it be regular ongoing repairs and maintenance, maybe we can figure out what percentage of housing is seniors housing and target that percentage of the CARE budget only for seniors. I think there needs to be some fund which is specifically targeted for seniors and for repairs to their homes. That’s just a comment.

I have a question in relation to transition housing. I note in the Minister’s opening comments that I didn’t see transition housing mentioned at all. It is something certainly that the Housing Corporation assists with. There are several non-government organizations in Yellowknife which do provide transition housing for clients that need it. I’d like to know from the Minister what kind of support the Housing Corporation provides in terms of transition housing. Is it only bricks and mortar or are there other programs that assist with transition housing?