Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, there is no plan to expand homeless shelters into the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member for Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, that's pretty unfortunate because like I stated there, the homeless shelter in Inuvik only has capacity for so many people, and you see residents from other communities trying to go there and they're told that they have no room, and the residents from the local town -- like, from the town of Inuvik are given first priority because they're the ones that live in the community.

Aklavik has a program that's administered by the Aklavik Indian band. I think they have up to four units that assist these homeless people with accommodations. They're given some kind of program where they can live in a home and live there until they can find suitable long-term arrangements. I've spoken to some of the residents that occupy these units, and I've also spoken to some of the administrators who administer this program, and it seems to be working. And it'll be good if the department can look at providing these services in the other communities.

I'm not going to ask you a question because I think you already answered my question about advocating or helping homeless people within the smaller communities. It's just unfortunate that -- looking at your emergency shelters, and it's gone down significantly from 2023-2024 to 2024-2025. So I don't see any room for advancing this, these programs to other smaller communities. It's only going to get worse because the people that are homeless, they get in trouble with the housing so it's local housing authorities by getting into arrears. And if they move out of their place and in the future, they want to apply, they're going to be told that they have arrears and those arrears have to be cleared off before they're even considered, then they're considered homeless. So it's just -- would be good if the department can, in the future, look at this homelessness more carefully because it's -- I lived in this -- in this environment for five months at one time. And you turn to alcohol and other -- myself, I just used alcohol, but I didn't consider myself an alcoholic because I was just merely surviving from one day to the next and it's not -- you can see that in every community. I see that in my own home community, and it's -- you feel helpless because you can't help your brothers, your sisters, your cousins, your community members. And these people just need a little help, because alcohol is the only detterrent they may have in the event that, you know, just surviving. I didn't consider myself an alcoholic because I overcame it. I mean, I'm still battling, but I've been able to overcome it because I was surviving from one day to the next. And if the department can help these people by, you know, keeping them in their own hometown, where their residents can maybe give them assistance too, by surviving from one day to the next. So it's more of a comment is to see if in the future that you can -- the department can look at providing these kinds of services that's provided in Aklavik and administered by a local Indigenous government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I know that you mentioned that it was just a comment, but I'm going to go to the Minister for an overall general comment to that. Thank you.

I know the difficulties in the past with Housing NWT in implementing policies that were colonialistic and sometimes punitive to many of our tenants across the Northwest Territories. But what we've done with Housing NWT over the last number of years is work on a strategic renewal initiative which included looking at reassessing those with arrears and providing those that have been evicted to be placed back on the waiting list for housing.

I know housing in the communities is few and far between. The 19th Assembly was the first Assembly in many, many Assemblies to actually put some capital dollars towards housing in the Northwest Territories. Much of that funding has been carried forward into this Assembly, so we still got a bit of work to do. But with those policies that MLA Nerysoo is referring to is things that have been put in place in the past and that we're working on to change for the future, for a better future for all of us and for Housing NWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Is there any further questions from Members? I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I am going back one page here, I apologize. But under community housing services, when we look at that line item for maintenance -- and I think my colleague from Monfwi was drawing attention to this one too.

My question is is this budget -- this line item just for, like, minor maintenance or repairs, or would it be for more serious renovations that are needed to, you know, to allow public housing unit tos be able to, you know, be liveable and stay open? I notice that the description of it says that it's for funding for LHOs to undertake demand and preventative maintenance activities to support the provision of good quality housing, but does this include more substantive renovations or repairs? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you for that question. With the maintenance budget, the maintenance budget is for LHOs and much of that is health and safety, preventative maintenance measures that are done on each unit throughout the Northwest Territories, each public housing unit, but also paying for staff to maintain those units. So that's all encompassing in that number of $13,854,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So if there was a need for a bigger renovation to keep a unit, you know, liveable, to keep it -- someone housed there, what line item or where would that come out of the budget?

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For modernization and improvement of units, that is an MMI project, and that's under community housing services under expenditure category minor modernization and improvements. It comes through our capital plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we do see a significant decrease in the budget for minor modernization and improvements, both on page 383 and then -- oh, it's the exact same one in the wrap-up page, 379. So what's the reason for such a major decrease in the budget for the modernization and improvements? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Unfortunately, our CIRNAC agreement sunsetted, and it decreased our MMI budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So was this budget being fully used? Was it fully subscribed before the sunsetting? Like, is there a need for at least, you know, $6.6 or even $7.1 million worth of modernization and improvements? That was the number from 2022-2023. If we could find that money, could you use it? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Member for the question. I mean, housing always could use more money, but we do have a carry forward plan. MMI is part of that carryforward plan, and we got some -- a lot of work over the next year to catch up with that work. So our capital and our MMI budget is carried forward, and there's a lot of projects on the go. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister give any insights into why there is a lot of carryforward? It sounds like there's trouble implementing some of these projects and they needed, you know, repairs and improvements. Can the Minister give us some insights into what is holding us back from being able to use the money each year for the improvements that are needed. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.