Lucy Kuptana

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Housing NWT recognizes that it is a social agency and not just a landlord. So in many of the communities, public housing is one of the only options available to house people with lower incomes. This means that Housing NWT will, except in extraordinary cases, work much harder than a private landlord to maintain a tenancy rather than moving towards an eviction. These efforts include extra steps to communicate with the tenant and change the behaviours that can result in eviction. Except in the more severe cases, LHOs complete a tenant success plan checklist to ensure that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope they haven't lost confidence because these are local agencies and these are local people that fill these positions, so it's important to have that conversation locally. And I'm willing to talk to residents. We are planning a tour of the Mackenzie Delta in April and I'm willing to have that conversation directly with any residents. So happy and looking forward to it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. We do have policies in place. It depends on waitlists, housing availability, the size of the household itself, the application itself. So we review these things. I don't know if we need to change these policies, but this is something that we can consider and have a conversation with the Member. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My second question to the Member and the staff is it consistent with like collective agreements and what the CPI increase would be with collective agreements; is there consistency with that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If a public housing tenant is evicted, so most LHOs have a minimum time, up to six months, before they will allow an evicted tenant to reapply for public housing. So they have a sixmonth period where they won't allow any applications. And after that six months, the evicted tenant can reapply for a public housing unit. The tenant may be asked to show that they're they won't resume their same behaviours that they were evicted for before allowing them to reapply for housing. So the LHOs will refer the former tenants to other social agencies and programs that may be able...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the supports that Housing NWT provides is they offer tenants opportunities to enter into payment plans if their issue is related to arrears. Housing NWT also reviews the rent calculations if there's a concern, if they have income changes. Say, they lost a job or they're starting another job with a different income level. So Housing NWT may refer tenants to other social services or health resources if the client is facing complaints from neighbours or is also to seek out additional assistance to avoid losing their home. And then Housing NWT also seeks out alternative...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Member for the question. I think this is an educational process because we deal with evictions, but it's few and far between with public housing. So public rental evictions are dealt with under the Residential Tenancies Act. So the local housing association makes a tenant aware of their violation, seeks the agreement with the tenant to resolve the issue. When all reasonable efforts are exhausted, the LHO issues a termination of tenancy notice and submits an application to the rental office. The rental office may try to remediate and may set a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, housing in the communities is operated through the local housing associations. So we have housing associations in most of our communities. We also hold annual general meetings with the associations annually. So this is an opportunity for residents, if they do have concerns with housing, to attend the AGMs to have this conversation with the local housing associations so they can talk to district, and they can also talk to the Ministers and deputy ministers about these policies so that message is carried on. If there is concerns, they also can speak to you as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to offer condolences to the recent passings in the Nunakput riding over the last month. First, the loss of Joseph Haluksit in Ulukhaktok, a respected elder and community leader who I had the distinction of sitting with on the Inuvialuit Communications Society. Condolences to Elsie and family in Ulukhaktok.

Next is the loss of Sandy Wolki, a respected elder, harvester and musician, who was also one of our few Inuvialuktun language leaders left, someone who we all turned to when we needed support in advancing an Inuvialuktun language initiative, a wealth of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my heart of hearts, I wish I could write everybody off, but I can't. We're a housing corporation and we use this revenue to provide more housing throughout the Northwest Territories. But we look at individual cases every year. Housing NWT does look at individual cases, and we follow the Financial Administration Act. And if there is cases that the Member would like us to look at, we can look at those. We can review things but, again, we have to follow the law and our regulations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.