Okay, thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you for that. And do we have numbers yet for 2024-2025 in terms of whether it was fully subscribed? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Jim Martin will provide information with the number of subscriptions for this current year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the vice-president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of approved applications, as of September we had five. To be completed, however, in progress, 231. So the target would be 240 to date. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go back to the Member for Yellowknife North.
Okay, I'm going to have to maybe get that in writing to get the math straight. But it seems that this is a really valuable program to help people prevent, you know, their, like, larger problems from developing over time and the need for larger repairs and renos if they can just do that preventative maintenance early on. So what is Housing NWT doing to, like, raise awareness about this program and its availability and that people can take advantage of that to help prevent problems later on? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Erin Kelly will provide information related to the coms piece around this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the things that we've been working on recently is a review of our communications and areas where we can improve and get the word out, and this would be one of the problems that we would look at with that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all my questions on this page.
Thank you. Next on my list I have is the Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just going to ask a question within this activity here. I know I raised it, and we're all quite aware of the Fort Good Hope construction investment that's underway and mobilization of materials for construction of the centre during this winter road season.
Is the department having discussions to form some dialogue on how to support the project which will ultimately produce modular homes which we know is a crisis throughout the territories? And I guess quite simply, Mr. Chair, is the department having discussions with the leadership in Fort Good Hope? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. During the housing symposium, the NWT Housing symposium, there was initial introductions with the Fort Good Hope construction centre team, and President Kelly here had further meetings with them, so she'll provide some insight to that, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the housing symposium, I had a separate meeting with Arthur and Crystal, and we talked about the timelines and what they're looking at, and I expressed interest in meeting with them as soon as they're ready, through their work, to discuss what their timelines looked like so that we can have an understanding and look together for the future of how we could work together. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I want to thank the Minister and staff for that reply. And it's a -- I'm going to say a multi-year approach, affordable access to Fort Good Hope for materials and fittings and mechanical items, and then, you know, in preparation for financing those supports is, in my view, a two year. So I understand this budget is for this year, but I'm glad to hear that there's talks in preparation because we got to annually supply and have talks because it's only a winter road season accessible to Fort Good Hope. But all in all, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Minister and staff for that reply. I look forward to helping out any way I can. Mahsi.
I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And yes, understood. And this is part of the discussions that President Kelly had with the Fort Good Hope team, was looking at the construction centre and some of the construction down the line with the capital plan to align all of that in preparation considering the transportation costs, winter road access, barge access, so all of these things are in consideration, and we have to look long term rather than short term, but we want to support them in their endeavorers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. And I'll go to the Member from the Sahtu.
Nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Next on my list I have is the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask about the homeownership initiative program. You know, it's one that receives a relatively small amount of funding, so I'll just start first question. Is the program fully subscribed every year; do we max out this funding? And if not, why not?
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Jim Martin will provide information related to the homeownership initiative program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the vice-president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, this program is not fully subscribed. Housing NWT continues to promote the opportunities with existing tenants to assume ownership of their units. And that work continues. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Could the Minister or her staff kind of elaborate a bit further on that. Like, what are the real barriers that are getting in the way because -- and I wanted to talk about this one because it comes up very often. Some of our community MLAs in particular, you know, speak to -- and we heard about this a lot when we were doing our priority setting. We heard it from Indigenous governments. You know, people want to have a sense of ownership with their homes. And it's just -- it seems to be a goal that everybody agrees is a great goal to have, and yet here we have even quite a modest program that just isn't getting enough uptake. So can staff kind of help MLAs understand, you know, what's getting in the way, and are there things that we need to change about this program, or are there barriers that we need to reduce in order to get the program fully subscribed and perhaps even expanded? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of barriers with the homeownership initiative program -- and I spoke about this in the House earlier. But many times, people are not prepared to take on the homeownership initiative and apply to the program. That's one of the barriers. The second barrier is this is related to coordinating of thresholds, so there is a salary threshold for people to be -- applicable to this program and you have to reach -- you have to be below that threshold to be -- to apply to the program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So can the Minister help me better understand this a little bit better. So there's an income threshold that you have to be below in order to get it, and I'm assuming if you go above the threshold you're not eligible anymore. But wouldn't we think that people who were above a certain income threshold would be even better able to kind of own and operate a home? And so I kind of -- is that threshold really helping us in this program? I mean, certainly the idea of people starting to own a home, I mean that's the goal that we're trying to achieve here. So why do we even have a threshold which would prevent people from accessing the program? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Erin Kelly will provide more information related to the thresholds. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So my understanding is the reason you would want to have a threshold is because there are folks who make enough money that they would be able to access in a market community the market on their own, and so you need to -- you would have a threshold. I will comment here that one of the things that the associate deputy minister at Housing NWT is working on right now is the renewal project, and we'll be looking at the organizational design and which will lead to some program design work, and homeownership programs have already been flagged as something that we need to look at. And so there will be work to assess the program details for the homeownership programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Frame Lake.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And really appreciate that information and certainly encourage the department to pursue that work, which they're already doing. So I guess, yeah, appreciate that that work's taking place. Because -- and I guess I would just say, I mean, yeah, in a market-based community, that makes perfect sense to me. I'm wondering if do we need, then, to maybe think about splitting up the requirements of this program because, you know, again, I can't stop highlighting the work that social development's been doing and some of the great presentations that committee's been receiving about this sort of thing. But in some of the nonmarket communities, programs like this are really a great way to help people kind of not just develop a sense of ownership but, in fact, actually achieve ownership of their homes. So is there maybe a need for a different stream or maybe that already exists or a different set of criteria for communities where market-based solutions just aren't available? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Kelly will provide the information related to that question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I will say that we are -- we have definitely been having conversations about the fact that some of our programs are across the NWT when they should be looking at the difference between market communities and nonmarket communities, and that is something that will be looked at when the review of these programs is done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate that. And just -- I wanted to highlight it because I just -- I have a feeling that these kinds of programs are certainly going to be a part of what social development ends up coming forward with its recommendations. Not to preclude the committee, but it's just based on the presentations I've been seeing at that committee, and what we've been hearing from Indigenous governments, it really is the trend that I think we're heading towards, and I think it's a good one. I think we want people moving in this direction, so I wanted to highlight that. And, you know, really all I'll say further on this is, you know, it's a relatively modest aspect of the GNWT budget. Out of our $2.6 billion, we're putting, you know, $9.3 million into these homeownership assistance programs, and certainly this is something that I would be very excited to see grow. I note that some of these -- like most of these items have either received, you know, very small reductions or are just kind of proceeding along status quo. And as Emily Morgan -- or I'm sorry, the Member from Yellowknife North pointed out, you know, there's been pretty high inflation over the years, and if we don't keep up with inflation in programs like this, we're going to be falling behind. And just similar to what the Member for Monfwi was saying with programs like this, you know, they're so crucial to people in the communities, to the housing continuum in the NWT, and I certainly want to express my support to the department and to Cabinet, for the Minister's who are listening, to be putting more money towards our housing programs. It's one of the top priorities of the Assembly, and I'm very -- you won't hear any complaints from me if we start to see these budget items increasing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
