Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This strategy to address homelessness is a pretty important document, in my personal opinion, based on my professional experience before coming into the ledge and my personal interest in politics as well. When it was first brought to me and said we need to change the strategy, one of the first things I looked at when looking at it is the stakeholder engagement which, Mr. Speaker, I felt was a little bit lacking. So we have provided a “draft” draft that we are seeking feedback from MLAs to see if we're on the right track. We will be doing engagement with the sheltering agencies and other agencies that are directly impacted by homelessness. And we are expecting that a draft, final draft, will come to the Assembly, be tabled in the House here within this sitting, so towards the end of March. Again, there will be work after that. And so the final strategy, not in draft, will be tabled in the May, June session. But hopefully the draft will be at the end of this month. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, I'm hopeful too that at least a draft will get tabled. I think at some point we seem to have kind of lost sight of the goal, which is, you know -- in our mandate we're committed to adding a hundred new public housing units, which certainly helps, you know, with homelessness. But the goal is not just to add and maintain our public housing stock. The goal is to actually end homelessness, and I mean that under the definition. I often point to the Yellowknife ten-year plan to end homelessness. I point to the fact that Medicine Hat, which has far more people than the Northwest Territories, has ended homelessness, meaning that when we go out and count, there are less than three people who identify as chronically homeless which is the goal, Mr. Speaker. It's the goal we should be working towards. So can the Premier confirm whether our strategy will actually be one to end homelessness? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm just going to be honest here, Mr. Speaker. In my 20 plus years of being a social worker and working directly with homeless people, I cannot make a commitment that says we will end homelessness. I think that's a fallacy, Mr. Speaker. So our goal is to end long-term chronic homelessness. There are situations every single day, and this is based on 20 years of working with people, that today you might not be homelessness; tomorrow you might lose your job; you might have a bad relationship; you might end up homeless. So, Mr. Speaker, the goal is not to end homelessness. The goal is to end chronic long-term homelessness within this plan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know what, I'm actually glad to hear that. I think we're getting into semantics. When people say end homelessness, they mean that when you go out and count the people on the street, they haven't been chronically homeless usually for a period of about three months. You know, you want to try and get someone back into housing in some sort of form, whether it's transitional, in three months. So I don't want to get into semantics of what ending homelessness does as long as we're somewhat in the same ballpark.

My real question -- my next question, though, Mr. Speaker, is we love our big strategies, but we don't necessarily like funding them. Can the Premier inform this House of whether the draft strategy or the final strategy or some point the final strategy will actually be costed and have some money with it, Mr. Speaker?

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's a couple of things that I am trying to get done within this homelessness strategy. One is to have some costing. Of course, some things, Mr. Speaker -- some things -- I'm hoping to have a logic model because I've heard that from Members right across this Assembly about measurable outcomes, etcetera. And we had no measurable outcomes or even baseline data for homelessness at this point, Mr. Speaker. We don't even know how many people are homeless. So data collection is a part of the homelessness strategy that we'd be looking at. Some costing initially. But this strategy is not going to be done in six months. And my guess is not even in six years. I think this will be a long-term strategy. So some costing will be done but not the whole costing for the whole strategy, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Rylund Johnson Yellowknife North

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to make sure that we're not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We know that a number of our communities have housing plans. We know a few of our Indigenous governments are working on housing plans. I mentioned earlier the Yellowknife -- the City of Yellowknife created a ten-year plan to end homelessness, which was costed. They really fell behind and then required a lot of federal and GNWT funding to do it. But I think that the framework is there, at least in the Yellowknife model.

Can the Premier speak to how all of those other plans will work into our strategy? I want to make sure this is truly a whole-of-government and a whole-of-territory approach. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I do think that it does need to be looked at not just from a housing perspective. Homelessness is -- a lot of times people think that homelessness is just a lack of housing. That's not -- that's, again, a fallacy, Mr. Speaker. In my personal opinion, homelessness comes from many factors. It may be situational, bad relationship today. It could be mental health and addictions. It could be other factors that some people prefer to live in different ways. And so it's important that we not reinvent the wheel. And that's why I'm looking for the stakeholder engagement which is critical. That'll involve the sheltering agencies. It'll involve all the agencies that are involved in homelessness, including the City of Yellowknife who is very active in addressing homelessness. We need to look at what their plans are and incorporate into ours. Reinventing the wheel is not the way to go.

One other point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is that I've realized over my seven and a half years of being in the Assembly is that homelessness is a really hard topic. People are not really comfortable with it. Better get comfortable. The reality is is that we tend to shuffle them from department to department, and you can't do that with homelessness. It does take an integrated approach. We're looking at -- depending on the draft and the feedback we get, we're looking at actually taking that and actually having a division within the GNWT that addresses homelessness so that it can be an all-of-government approach so it's not shuffled from department to department within this Assembly, past Assemblies and the next Assemblies to come. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Oh Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry, I'm operating out of my computer today. There we go. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Housing NWT.

Mr. Speaker, to calculate the annual funding it provides to LHOs for repair and maintenance of its public housing portfolio, the corporation uses a formula that multiplies a fixed amount by the number and type of housing units. The LHOs are expected to allocate the funds according to the needs identified in the annual property inspection and condition rating process. So I'm wondering if the Minister can let the House know if LHOs are adequately funded as per the Housing NWT formula? Thank you.

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question as well too. You know, since I've had the housing portfolio, I've had the opportunity to travel to the majority of the communities throughout the Northwest Territories. I've met with the local housing authorities. I've met with the board of directors as well too. Also with the district offices to really thoroughly understand the housing delivery program right at the grassroots, right at the ground level, and what I was able to see and understand is that no, the local housing authorities are not adequately funded. And through that, we've created a housing strategy as well too where we are going to be identifying those impacts that we need to address. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering if the Minister responsible for Housing NWT can let the House know what the current difference is between what is funded and what is actually required? Thank you.

Paulie Chinna Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for this question as well too. What I've come to understand is that we need homes throughout the Northwest Territories. We need a lot of homes. But also with our constant advocation with the Indigenous governments, stakeholders throughout the Northwest Territories, with the federal government as well too, to put houses on the ground. Mr. Speaker, there's a huge difference. When we're looking at putting homes on the ground, we need to address the social impacts of that program delivery. We also need to provide adequate programming as well too to support our local -- our homeowners in our smaller communities for our seniors, for our youth, and for me, Mr. Speaker, that is the huge difference. But what is required throughout the Northwest Territories is we need more homes, and we need more houses on the ground. We need operational and maintenance funding. We need more money coming to the Northwest Territories. And by that, working with Indigenous governments, stakeholders, nonprofit organizations, we've seen a huge address to housing needs throughout the Northwest Territories with our work with the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think this side of the House is well aware that the Northwest Territories has a housing deficit and needs more homes. My question was what is the current difference between what is funded and what is required? Thank you.