Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 2014-15 Main Estimates for the NWT Housing Corporation. The main estimates propose a budget of $141.730 million, an increase of 25.7 percent from the 2013-14 Main Estimates. The budget includes a contribution of $83.482 million from the GNWT for 2014-15.
As Members are aware, one of the five priorities identified by the 17th Legislative Assembly is to
address housing needs. There are significant differences in housing between our market and non-market communities and there are needs along the entire housing continuum, from homelessness to homeownership. The actions of the NWT Housing Corporation are also being guided by Building for the Future, our strategic plan.
The activities reflected in the 2014-15 Main Estimates for the NWT Housing Corporation build on the work we have done over the first two years of the 17th Assembly, and some of the highlights
include:
• We have made substantial investments to
improve the quality of the public housing stock and will invest a further $20.5 million in 2014-15 to replace 39 older public housing units and complete major retrofits to 216 units.
• We are expanding the availability of market
rentals to support devolution, decentralization and service delivery in smaller NWT communities. We plan to build 34 new units and spend $7.5 million in 2014-15 as part of the plan to add 100 market rentals over the next three years. We have also increased our budget for partnership arrangements to support developers that want to invest to add to the rental stock in smaller communities.
• In 2014-15 we will spend $9 million to build new
seniors independent living complexes in Fort Good Hope and Fort Liard and to replace the Joe Greenland Centre in Aklavik.
• We will build six new public housing units in
Jean Marie River, Colville Lake and Wekweeti, which are communities currently underserved by the Public Housing Program.
• We are making significant changes to improve
service delivery to community residents and strengthen our relationship with the local housing organizations. These changes will make it easier for residents to access our programs. They will also allow us to better balance overall roles and responsibilities and better support our community delivery agents.
• We also have initial plans to create new local
housing organizations in Fort Liard, Whati and Gameti, which will improve service delivery in these communities and create new community employment.
• We are improving our homelessness supports
and doing our part to support the Anti-Poverty Strategic Framework. This includes investing $680,000 for four new transitional housing units to help address the “hard to house” in smaller NWT communities. We are also establishing a Shelter Capital Fund, which will be an application-based program to support shelters in the NWT that are operated by NGOs with repairs for their facilities and equipment.
• We are continuing to change and improve our
programs to ensure consistency across the housing continuum and to support the objective of strengthening self-reliance and to support residents in meeting their own shelter needs.
• We will continue to make investments in
alternative energy technologies and to take advantage of retrofits to improve energy efficiency. We are also improving our systems to better track and understand the impact of the energy investments on our operating costs.
Public Housing continues to be the largest program offered by the NWT Housing Corporation, with approximately 2,400 units. The change in the rent scale implemented on July 1, 2012, made rent simpler, more predictable and fairer, and addressed the disincentive to work. We have improved management of the program with the introduction of new information systems for tenant relations and maintenance activities. The investments planned for 2014-15 build on the more than $140 million spent on the public housing stock over the past seven years.
The NWT Housing Corporation has also taken significant steps to support homeownership in the Northwest Territories. The NWT Housing
Corporation will spend approximately $7.6 million in 2014-15 supporting homeownership and assisting homeowners in completing repairs to their houses. We have made changes to our Emergency Repair Program, our preventative maintenance program and will be making revisions to our major repair program in 2014-15.
Changes have been made to PATH, our subsidy to support the home purchases, which makes this program more effective in supporting homeownership in non-market communities and expands the potential pool of clients. Changes are being introduced to HELP in 2014-15 to make it more consistent with our approach to the public housing rent scale.
Late in 2012-13 steps were taken to provide homeownership clients that have a mortgage with the NWT Housing Corporation revised mortgage balances and affordable repayment options. I am pleased to report that most clients have taken advantage of this program, with mortgage collection rates of about 80 percent for the clients that have entered into these new agreements. Unfortunately, there are a number of clients that have not responded to the new program and mortgage collection continues to be quite low for those clients. Legal action is likely the next step in many of these cases.
The Transitional Rent Supplement Program, which provides support to reduce the affordability problems and core need among residents in market rentals, was introduced in late 2012. In total, about 100 households have received support through this program, although about 20 households have since left the program as their housing situation has changed. As a new program, the NWT Housing Corporation continues to promote awareness about the Transitional Rent Supplement Program as it fills a gap in our housing supports that has historically been a large contributor to our overall core housing need.
Finally, the NWT Housing Corporation continues to administer the Homelessness Assistance Fund and the Small Community Homelessness Fund. The $325,000 for these two funds provides direct assistance to residents who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and funds projects in smaller NWT communities that address homelessness issues. In 2014-15 the Hard to House Initiative will see four communities supported in operating small transitional housing projects and the Shelter Capital Fund being added. Thank you, Mr. Chair.