Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Minister and Mr. Anderson for the explanation. This identifies it as one unit. Generally, when I see one unit referenced in the Housing Corporation information I think of like a two-bedroom apartment or a house or something. In this building, which is this non-residential building, is it the whole building that’s being upgraded and what’s the size of the building?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It’s actually the Centre for Northern

Families and it’s the whole building that’s going to be upgraded.

Good to hear that. I know that building definitely needs it. That helps me understand the expense.

The other question I have is the next item in the list and it’s public housing, or PH, public housing, housing replacement reserve. I don’t remember seeing that in other descriptions of expenditures. I wonder if I could get an explanation or is this a normal practice for us to have a reserve situation and what is this referencing in Yellowknife?

We’ll turn it over to Mr.

Anderson.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to Mr. Anderson and to the Minister and staff. I thin

k that’s

great. As long as government allows us to do reserves like that, I think it’s a far better way than doing a lump sum multimillion dollar payout at one time. That’s all I have.

Committee, we are on pages 68, 69, 70, 71 and 72, finance and infrastructure services, infrastructure investments, $22.187 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ve just

been scanning this list repeatedly, looking for the words Ndilo and Detah and I’m not finding them. It’s not that I do not spend a good proportion of my constituency work on housing issues in my community. I wonder if I could get the Minister thinking on that and what the strategy is for the situation my people are facing.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Just for reference, Mr. Bromley, page 69, item 7, there is a unit there. But I’ll let the Minister follow up with that. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We were positive that we had Detah and Ndilo on the list here, but as the Chair pointed out, it is on page 69. Let me put my glasses on...six units major retrofit. I almost gave them an extra one there. We recognize some of the challenges the Member faces there. You can recall we had a couple, I think we had a triplex there that was vacant. Folks are moving into that triplex, so we recognize the Member has had some issues in his riding and he has brought them forward to us. We are glad to see that we have some work and some units being major retrofitted in Detah and Ndilo. Thank you.

Thanks for the Minister’s

comments with sharp eyes there. I actually had not found that one. I appreciate very much the retrofits that are done. I know the Minister is aware of the state of the housing in those communities. It’s very difficult to visit people in their homes, which are not necessarily public housing units; people are fierce about trying to keep their own homes going. Unfortunately, I have not been successful in helping them get support from the corporation to deal with some of those clearly traumatic conditions.

I know there was a triplex, there was also a couple of homeownership units that have sat empty, brand new, for a couple of years now. I don’t know that it is appropriate to ask what the strategy is for that. It seems appropriate, though, that if we are going to build this infrastructure, we want to be able to enable and find a way to get people into those units. Again, I appreciate the major retrofits on those units. I know the Minister is aware of the need there. I would appreciate comments on how we can figure out how to get people into those units. Thank you.

The Member has been very diligent in bringing concerns of his constituents forward. Unfortunately, some of the decisions that are made are ones th

at he wasn’t aware of or

because of one reason or another, folks were declined for some of the programs.

We have done a number of things to try and get as many people qualified for programs as possible. I think we have one affordable housing unit left in Detah and our desire would have been to find a suitable client to put into that unit. Failing that, as we

did in some of the other communities, we have actually turned it into a public housing unit.

The corporation is well aware of the challenge that we face out there. We just had a meeting out there recently and, again, it was pointed out about some of the vacant units and we are working the steps to try and address that. Hopefully, we are able to do that soon.

Ideally, we would like to have clients for all of our HELP units that we put on the ground, try to get people transitioned into homeownership. For one reason or another, we seem to be, not only in that community but we seem to in other communities, we have been challenged to get people who are qualified. We have changed some of our criteria to try to make them qualified, and for one reason or another we have managed to get a few in. The ones that we haven’t been able to use, we have turned them into public housing units. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I went on a little too long.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, again, we are on pages 68 to 72

on

finance

and

infrastructure

services,

infrastructure investments, $22.187 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am just wondering what the net positive impact will be in the Yellowknife community for public housing in this budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m

sorry, Mr. Chair, I am going to have to ask the Member to repeat his question.

The impact, Minister, on Yellowknife housing with this budget.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have a few projects that are here in the capital. We are just trying to find the dollar value. If we can’t come up with it right away, I will commit to getting that dollar value to the Member. Thank you.