Lucy Kuptana

Thank you, Madam Chair. Honestly, I really appreciate these questions but this level of detail is, like, very down, you know, nitty-gritty detail that we can provide but it would take some work to provide that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With the territorial housing needs assessment, this is something that we can share with committee. But basically in the initial review -- and there's still much to be done as President Kelly noted -- the 15,000 units within the territory, 2900 are Housing NWT owned units. And of that, based on the initial assessment, 700 more units are required throughout the Northwest Territories, both private and Housing NWT. So this is just the initial assessment with that report that we can share, but President Kelly can provide more information to that, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. An enormous task, considering Behchoko has 135 people on the waitlist -- 135 families on the waitlist. That's why this territorial housing needs assessment is so important, because we look at everything that we have but we also look at the quality of housing that we have. That's why unit condition ratings are so important is we make decisions, planning decisions, based on unit condition ratings and ages of the housing unit. We have over 356 housing units that are 50 years plus in the Northwest Territories. Some in Behchoko, but many in other communities as well. So...

Thank you, Madam Chair. If I want to be clear, there's no money for additional housing units to be built. Nothing has been approved. But housing still has a responsibility to plan and to plan in place if there's federal funding and if it's approved. The budget today is the budget that you're reviewing and asking questions on. You've had this for how many weeks. We've presented this to committee. We've gone through it. So there was an opportunity then as well. And perhaps President Kelly can provide you more information on what's being done over the next year. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Jim Martin here will provide more information with the HELP unit disposition. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. $50 million for one year. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, for that information, I'll ask President Kelly to speak on it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are planning, and we have to plan, but we have to continue to look for federal funding for this plan. Reached out to the Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Canada to talk about funding through the FERN* pot that was announced last year by the federal government. We continue to advocate for these funds through either PT meetings or FPT meetings, and I have a meeting coming up tomorrow, an FPT meeting. But in terms of finding the funds, these, we plan, but we, again, need to find the funds for this. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. With the 130 vacant housing units throughout the Northwest Territories, there's more vacant units but many of them, we don't have the funding for to modernize or improve those units. So with 130 units that are outlined, these are in the works of being updated or upgraded but it depends on funding. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Incremental plan meaning that we were looking at units across the Northwest Territories based on age of the housing units and also the need, utilizing the preliminary results of our territorial housing needs assessment. Thank you, Madam Chair.