David Krutko

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, like I mentioned earlier, there has been a committee struck made up of people from the Department of Executive. Also we have people who are responsible for strategic planning, and my department will also be involved. We are trying to get a view for the public with regard to where we are going with our mandate, but, more importantly, get input from the stakeholders we have out there and also from the local housing authorities and also with regard to the people here in this Legislature to ensure that the mandate we have put forward is the right direction we...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the question the Member raises about people that are hard to house, we do have allowance to work with the client; we do have payment plans where people can work out if they have arrears; we do hold units for students that do go off to school for, I believe, a one-year period. So if they do two years, or if they come back to their home community, those units are reserved for those students. So we do have those arrangements in place. But I think the question of people that are hard to house, it does lead to our homeless issue and we have a committee...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this program is there to try to catch those people who are in a situation where they may have arrears. They are not able to pay down those arrears in order to get into EDAP or be able to go to a bank because they have a bad credit rating. So we want to be able to work with them to be able to get them back on their feet and assist them with a payment plan and allow them to move into these units, paying the utility costs for the two-year period and then be able to get them on their feet to purchase the unit outright through EDAP, or go to the bank and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. As soon as possible. As soon as I can get a phone number, give her a call, congratulate her and see how soon we can meet. So ASAP.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will allow the president to respond to that.

I couldn’t answer the Member’s question, but the last lease that we did enter into was in 1998, which was almost seven years ago.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we do try to work with communities and especially with our LHOs. We do find that we're trying to give more responsibility for the local housing authorities to build capacity, but also take on more housing responsibilities such as the seniors' maintenance repair program. We're asking the LHOs to do the work in house so they can hire another person on staff so that they have someone in the community that has a ticket and are able to build up their capacity in communities. But I think also the majority of our contracts that go to communities are tendered...

We are looking at 108 units; roughly about $19.9 million.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been working with the community of Fort Liard. The leadership in the community is in the process of establishing a community housing board to deal with these housing issues, and that will establish an officer to work with the community to take on more of that responsibility. Right now, it is administered pretty well out of Fort Simpson. By doing that, we will devolve more of that authority to that community and allow them to make decisions with housing. We are working with the community leaders, the hamlet, the band council, and also proceeding...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regards to Fort Liard, we have had a problem with the Kotaneelee units. We have put $1 million in there to do renovations of the units. We have completed four. We have had meetings with the municipality, the hamlet and the band council for them to conclude the remaining six units. But in this year’s budget, we are looking at allocating five more units into Fort Liard. With that and ongoing funding, we hope to address the housing needs in Fort Liard.