My last question is along the same lines. Are we offering any incentives for power conservation, for example, recognizing that tenants are paying much less than the actual cost

of power? It seems like it would be worthwhile to offer incentives that would get us a net gain there and I’m wondering if we are doing any policy development in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. One final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you. Just to add to that a little bit, Mr. Chair, the tenant is paying six cents, going to be nine cents. The government is paying an average of a buck fifty, so it seems like there is an awful lot of room for incentive there to get beyond that modest three cents or nine cents to get the tenant to conserve electrical power and still be a net gain for the government. I’ll just leave it at that. Just a comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ll treat it as a comment. Moving on, we have Mr. Yakeleya.

Can the Minister provide us with small communities for shelters or homeless funding? I know the Minister talked about that in his opening comments. I appreciate the small community homeless funding that’s coming forward. It’s much needed in our communities in the Sahtu. I know some of these communities have this type of support. There are 27 communities that will receive this type of funding in the amount of 300 and some-odd thousand dollars. I wonder if the Minister can provide a written document to me and I’ll ask how these communities are eligible, first-come, first-served. What is the highest criteria? How does this money get divvied up within in the year of this homeless funding?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There’s an application process that should be coming out pretty soon. They can put in an application for specific projects in their community. In 2011-12 we had about eight different initiatives out there from Bailey Hot Soup Lunch Program to Food Bank to Shelter Enhancement Project, Soup Kitchen. So there are some opportunities there.

Again, there is an application process and it’s going to be coming out very shortly here. Thank you.

I’ll look forward to the application process coming out and notifying the communities in the Sahtu that they can apply for this and where to go.

Another issue I think over time the Minister has informed me of his community of Inuvik, there’s a project – I stand to be corrected – where people work off their arrears. I’m not sure if that’s something that’s a general standard or is that something that they’ll give to the LHOs. There’s some people who have a hard time paying cash, but they can actually work off the arrears, either clean up around their yard or do something that will bring the value of that housing unit back to what it once was when it was first built. There are lots of things that they can do around the public housing unit. Sometimes these tenants just don’t care. The house looks pretty shabby. We could fix it up. We can fix up these lots. Is that something Housing could look at as a thing they could do to help them work off their arrears? Thank you.

In my response to Mr. Bromley, I said it was something we were willing to explore. There have been some projects in some communities where we allowed them to do that. We have to be very careful that when the Member talks about the grounds, to make sure he means grounds of a person’s particular unit. It would be awfully hard to tell somebody to clean up your own yard and we’ll adjust some of your arrears. It’s something we need to explore is what I’m trying to say.

I’ve committed to Member Bromley that it’s something on the Housing Corporation’s radar. I know in a couple of communities they have had some pilot projects where there’s been some success to it. We need to explore that. There are other issues, as I responded to Mr. Bromley, surrounding this and I think we need to make sure we are okay with all liability insurances and things like that before we proceed any further, but it is on the radar. Thank you.

I say this in all earnestness, some of the units that Housing operates, their yards are not looking very good unless the Housing staff says to the tenants clean up your yard. It looks pretty terrible. You say that’s a Housing house. I guess maybe that’s a bad example I use. Some of them need to paint their house or steps or do something. Housing staff always say they’re too busy, they don’t have time or whatever. I’m saying is there any way that the tenants could help out. I’m exploring all avenues, just keep digging and digging until we have something that works. Right now I’m just saying this and I’m not too sure how far it will go. The Minister has brought up some examples and I certainly agree with him. I haven’t even

thought about them, so I want this type of discussion where some of these things could help in our small communities to get the people out there and start taking pride in their units. If they are in arrears, there are ways to help them get out of arrears, not only by having cash in hand. That’s what I wanted to ask the Minister to see if he could look at some of these other ways that we can help. Thank you.

I appreciate the Member’s desire to help. It is, as I responded a couple of times before, an option we are looking at. It has been tried in the past. There are opportunities there for some of our LHOs to get creative. We need to start getting creative in situations.

One of the things we are looking at and I can point out right now, is having people with arrears maybe work with a community group and some of it would count towards their arrears. That way they are more involved with the community. So we are being creative and we are looking at different options. We go back to liabilities. We can work through that and come up with a pretty solid plan. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one question here and it’s a follow-up to my comments about the homelessness coordinator and the evaluation of the current programs. I don’t believe I heard anywhere when the Housing Corp expects to have the results of their evaluation of the current programs and when they’ll have some info for Members on what they might do with the money if they change the programs. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first step is we want to staff that position and then do an evaluation of the work they’re going to be doing. We have two different programs right now. So one of the first duties of the new homelessness coordinator will be to do an evaluation of programs and see how we can enhance them or make some changes that might be fairly effective. We’re committed to coming back in the fall when we go through the business plans and share that with committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Ms. Bisaro. Next on the list I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I was just doing some of the budget considerations and I notice in there, with the committee’s indulgence, in an earlier page there’s a reduction in job positions in the regional allocations in the Sahtu and the Deh Cho. Could I get the Minister to explain that?

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Before we go, Mr. Menicoche, can you please indicate which page? We did conclude, by agreement. Which page is that, Mr. Menicoche?

As a general question, yes.

We’ll allow a general question. I’ll put that question to Minister McLeod. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. These positions were just brought on board because of the federal investment we had. We had to bring a few more people on board. All that investment, the money is gone now. So there’s really no longer a need for these positions so they’re sunsetted.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Members, again, page 5-47, NWT Housing Corporation, information item, the executive. Any questions?