Robert C. McLeod

The Housing Needs Survey encompasses all aspects of housing in each community. Obviously, Yellowknife has an advantage over some of the other communities where the corporation is able to get into rent supp agreements with a lot of private landlords. Obviously, if there is a public housing shortage in Yellowknife, it is one that as a corporation we’ll have to address and see about getting public housing units into the capital. As well as looking across the Northwest Territories trying to get public housing into a lot of the other communities, because if you look at it percentage-wise, their...

We can provide the information to the Member. We’ve got about $1.2 million in CARE. The Member is correct; it is through the program delivery. So that’s on top of the infrastructure that’s going into the Member’s riding. There’s approximately $1.2 million earmarked for CARE. Then we’ve got preventative maintenance money, but I can provide some information to the Member as to exactly what’s going into his riding. Thank you.

As we speak we’re doing a review of the rent scale right now and this is a discussion I’ve had with senior management over at the Housing Corporation. As for an exact time frame of this particular one, I know we’re hoping to have the rent scale review completed and implemented by April 1st. But as far as the actual questions the Member is asking, I’m not sure of an exact time frame. I will confirm that and I will pass it on to committee. Thank you.

There are condition ratings done every year on public housing units and if they reach a certain condition rating after they’ve been renovated a few times, then this one is determined that they’re taken out of stock.

The public housing replacement units that you see, as we bring in new public housing units into a community we have to remove a few of them to keep our public housing portfolio level because of declining O and M funding from CMHC. So we try to dispose of the units. I think we have 44 right now that we’re looking to dispose of.

We’ve had discussions with community groups. They’re...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We realize the demographics are changing and we’re going to have to, we say we’re going to use the Community Housing Needs Survey as a basis for allocating infrastructure and this is something we’re going to have to look at.

I did commit to the Member, I said one unit. The Member was referring to one four-plex unit and I meant one unit. Give an inch, take a mile. Obviously it’s something that we’re going to have to look at.

We have the information before you. There are reasons that other communities got the number of units they did. The one community there was serious...

The delivery of public housing in Yellowknife is one that goes hand in hand with the delivery of public housing across the Northwest Territories. As far as the affordability in Yellowknife, they have a very vibrant housing market here and there’s an ability that’s not available in a lot of the smaller communities to access some of the market housing in Yellowknife.

Mr. Chairman, through our district offices, we try to get the information out there as quickly as possible and, again, having a pretty good idea of the potential projects for the next building season will give us an opportunity to get some of the information out there quicker so we can, if there are any expressions of interest out there, we would obviously hear about those a lot sooner.

The infrastructure budget is obviously a tabled item, so the information is available and will be available, so they would be able to realize the number of projects that might be coming out in their particular...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled A Clear Path Forward, Municipal and Community Affairs Strategic Plan 2010-2015. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

During this winter we’re going to find a feasible solution for the removal of those assets and if we can work with somebody that can get rid of them at minimal cost to the GNWT. As far as an actual dollar figure, I’m not able to provide that right now. Once we have the discussion with the engineering firm, I think we’d be in a better position to have a bit of a dollar figure, but the bottom line is to try and remove these assets with minimal costs to the GNWT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is absolutely correct; there was some infrastructure that was removed from the site -- cherry picked, as she put it -- but during this past summer we’ve done an inventory of the site and we’re looking at hiring an engineering firm to assess the structural integrity in an attempt to place some value on that. We’re going to look at possibly if it’s feasible to have it go out again, or to see what steps we can take next to do the actual cleanup. Thank you.