This is page numbers 659 - 708 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was community.

Topics

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Carpenter

Thank you, Madam Chair. All of those program items listed under contributions, those are funding that, as the Minister indicated, goes directly to the district office who delivers those programs. The one that kind of sticks out a bit is Habitat for Humanity. That's a budget we have set aside because they have expressed interest in doing one or two programs in the territory. We have that budget set up. We are hoping to do that. Once we get an indication of which communities those projects will take place, we will funnel that particular budget down to those district offices to work with Habitat for Humanity. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Member for Frame Lake.

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Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks, Madam Chair. I think that I am going to have to go offline, because I still don't understand the way that this is set out or accounted for. These are programs that are administered through the Housing Corporation. It looks like money flows through the district offices, but it doesn't quite add up with money on the previous page. Maybe it's too late in the day or something; I just don't understand this. Thanks, Madam Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.

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Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Chair. I really want to make sure that I answered this question correctly. Is the Member looking at the grants and contributions for each of the district offices that he says does not add up to the number on page 374?

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Member for Frame Lake, did you just want to clarify?

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Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks, Madam Chair. I think I have spent the last seven or eight minutes trying to understand what the relationship is of the contributions listed on page 374 to the line items on 373, and I haven't gotten to the bottom of it in a way that I can understand. Probably, with the Minister and her assistants there, I am not going to get to the bottom of it in the next 24 hours. I am going to have to go offline and ask them to better explain this. Thanks, Madam Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

All right. We will move on, then. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

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Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Marsi cho, Madam Chair. I am looking at page 374, as well. I just want to make a quick comment on this. This is one of those items that I get a lot of complaints about from people in my constituency, especially when accessing things like the SAFE program and CARE. It's just frustrating, because a lot of the time, there are barriers for things like land tenure and whatnot, but I'll start with my questioning now. I know that, for programs such as SAFE and seniors aging in place retrofits and repairs, they're $10,000 each. To me, sometimes, that's just not enough for a lot of repairs that happen. Anything that happens is really expensive in the home for a lot of our units. I'm going to ask the Minister: have there been any recent reviews of these programs to increase this amount to help those who have barriers to getting these programs? Marsi cho.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.

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Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am familiar with the question that the Member is asking about, and I do understand that land tenure and insurances do cause barriers for our program delivery. Going forward, I am going to be doing a review of the current programs that we do deliver. I do realize that the cost of material and the cost to get these improvements complete and done in a timely manner and to be acknowledged in the applications for rejection or approval, but I would like to see the majority of them approved going forward. I will just have Mr. Carpenter elaborate on this a little bit more. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Carpenter.

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Carpenter

Thank you, Madam Chair. When we set up our emergency repair program in there, under securing assistance for emergencies, we set that limit for true emergencies, such as, a common one is when people don't have heat. In terms of looking at the amount of money available for homes that need larger amounts of monies for repair, the Minister has directed us to look at that. Where you'll see, probably, positive change for the programming is under our major repair programming, and that's the Contributing Assistance for Repairs and Enhancements, CARE. We are working as hard as we can to make that change, and we wanted to let the Members know today that we anticipate positive change coming soon in that area. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

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Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Marsi, Madam Chair, and thank you for the response. I am looking at this a little more, too. I'm reading between the lines here. I just mentioned about barriers such as insurance and land tenure, and I looked at the fuel tank. I know, coming from the insurance background, a lot of risks, when they are assessed by a lot of these insurance companies, if you live in a place like Hay River, Fort Smith, or Yellowknife, the insurance rates are reasonable, and they're really dependent on how close you are to, say, a fire department. If you live in a place like Lutselk'e, or even Detah is considered outside of that range, insurance rates skyrocket, and it's just simply not affordable if you want to, say, protect your assets, if you own your own home.

Say we go down this road, and yes, we'll have own ownership programs, and, yes, I've finally got my home, but you have to worry about insurance in small communities. It's stifling, because the cost of living is so high already, and you're going to ask somebody to pay $3,000 to just insure the home for a year? It's a really, really tall ask already. A lot of us even living in larger centres, like here in Yellowknife, that is still a really expensive proposition. You still have to budget for that. I guess my question to the Minister, and this may be a question that I think some other Ministers might look at, maybe the Minister of Finance, is: what are we going to do about this insurance problem in the small communities? Thank you.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.

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Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am familiar with this, as well, because it's come up quite often in looking at the insurances within the smaller communities. I do understand. Land tenure is also an issue, as well, because you need the land in order to insure your home. I see the barriers like that. Right now, the Housing Corporation is in conversation with CIBC. The conversation is not anything that is going to be committed, but it's a conversation that is happening. Also, looking at the insurances is that what can we provide that's affordable and available to the people of the Northwest Territories. Looking at the insurances, I am very interested in securing our Northwest Territories Housing Corporation units. If it is our personal units going forward, I'm interested in making sure that we have security on them. Whether we have engaged a mortgage with a client to making sure that if the house were to burn down or something were to happen, if this were to happen five times throughout the territory, we don't have $500,000, $800,000 times ten to be rebuilding these structures. We're just trying to look for initiatives going forward that would best secure the people of the Northwest Territories that have the programming with the Housing Corporation or public housing as well. I hope that answers your question. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

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Steve Norn

Steve Norn Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the response. Just listening to that, I think there's a big, broader issue of insurance in the North. I think that's probably something I'll ask in the House here later on because I think this is something we need to talk about and figure out some common sense approaches to this. Again, this goes to the cost of living in the North. It's so huge, and we're going to need to find appropriate ways to help people in the North to protect their assets, especially in small communities. Marsi cho. I have nothing further.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Did you have a response to that? Minister.

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Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in regards to the home insurance, I just really want to be clear, as well, that through the Housing Corporation, we have a variety of programs, but the areas where I'm interested in, in insuring, is home ownership. I'm not interested in insuring the units that we're building stairs and we're building ramps. I'm not interested in doing that. I'm interested in the long-term security for the client if they do become homeowners. I want to make sure that they are secured and they do have the financial security going forward should anything happen to their own personal unit. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Minister. I'll move onto Member for Yellowknife Centre.

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Julie Green

Julie Green Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the, I'm going to just say, frankly, struggles that I've had with the Housing Corporation is to feel that the corporation has embraced its role as a social housing agency versus a landlord of social housing. There was a very promising initiative that was discussed at an anti-poverty round table about 18 months ago in which the Housing Corporation was piloting a housing stability program for its public housing tenants in Behchoko. This was the kind of program that was offered when I worked at the YWCA. The intention of the program was to do troubleshooting with tenants so they could stabilize their housing and develop good tenancy records so that they could obtain housing on the market if they had the money to do so. I think that was a pilot program, and I'm interested to know whether the pilot has been evaluated and what the results of that evaluation are? Thank you.

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The Chair

The Chair Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.

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Paulie Chinna

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Member, for your comment. I am familiar with this program, as well. It is due to expire. We did end up creating a new position. It was a housing stability worker that was working out of Yellowknife but back and forth to Behchoko. It was the first of our pilots, and it did work very well. It's something that I'm interested in working with and expanding, going forward, throughout the Northwest Territories because the issues are quite common throughout the territory dealing with homelessness and having people transition from public housing into the housing units, and the social impacts as well, too. Unfortunately, the position is to expire March 31st, but I'm looking at that position to continue. I will have, Mr. Carpenter elaborate on the program, as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.