EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Fire Damage Replacement Funding, another recurring capital item, is allocated at the Headquarters level.
The Housing Corporation is self-insured on its single homes and duplexes.
Through this program, $600 thousand is available to repair or replace fire-damaged units.
And that concludes my opening comments, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Ng. Do you have witnesses?
Do members agree that the Minister go to the witness table along with his officials?
Sergeant-at-arms can you escort the Minister and his officials.
Minister for the record, can you introduce your witnesses.
To my right is Pam Hine, the President of the Nunavut Housing Corporation. To my left is David Akoak, Vice-President.
We also have with us in the gallery Mr. Chris D’Arcy the Director of Policy and Planning.
The chairperson for the committee, do you have opening remarks. Mr. McLean.
Mr. McLean: As Chairman of the Standing Committee on Community Empowerment and Sustainable Development, I am pleased to be able to provide opening comments as we begin the review of 2003/2004 Capital Estimates for the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
Mr. Chairman, the Standing Committee had the opportunity in September to meet with the Minister responsible for the Nunavut Housing Corporation to review the draft 2003/2004 Capital Estimates.
Mr. Chairman, the Standing Committee appreciated the efforts made by the Corporation to provide briefings on new programs as they are in development.
The Committee was especially pleased to hear that Social Housing Tenants are now able to purchase their units and that applications to this program are now being evaluated.
The Committee applauds the Corporation’s efforts to consult with local housing organizations in the formulation of this program.
Mr. Chairman, the Committee is pleased that the Minister remains committed to replacing public housing units that are sold under the program within three years and anticipates seeing these replacement units in future capital plans.
The Standing Committee notes that new public housing rent scale will come into effect on January 1, 2003.
The Committee looks forward to a review of the new rent scale in the coming year.
Mr. Chairman, the standing committee realizes that efforts are being made to address the extreme shortage of public housing in Nunavut.
The Committee is pleased that almost every community will see the building of new public housing units this year.
However, the Committee is disappointed by the fact that Resolute Bay will not receive any new public housing units this year because of problems with service to lots in the community.
The Standing Committee strongly urges the Corporation to work in conjunction with Public Works and Services and Community Government and Transportation to ensure that new public housing units can be built in Resolute Bay in the future.
Mr. Chairman, the committee notes that there is no new funding allocated for staff housing in 2003/2004 estimates or in the five year capital plan.
However, recent supplementary appropriations have allocated significant funds for the purchase of staff housing.
The committee is unsure what the long term plan is for staff housing in Nunavut and questions whether or not further funding will be allocated to staff housing in the future through supplementary appropriations instead of appearing in the capital plan.
Mr. Chairman, the committee looks forward to working closely with the minister in the New Year as he works to finalize the comprehensive staff housing policy framework. Staff housing is an integral part of the government hiring process and as such, the committee looks forward to reviewing a long term plan for staff housing in Nunavut.
The Standing Committee notes with interest the recent request for proposals to relocate residential housing units from Nanisivik to Arctic Bay.
Once again, the committee would like to support the Corporation in its efforts to bring innovative solutions to the housing crisis in Nunavut.
Mr. Chairman, the committee looks forward to updates on this and other projects that will increase the housing stock in the future.
Before we go to a question, I would like to remind the members that you have ten minutes each for general comments.
That is our usual procedure.
I’m happy that the Nunavut Housing Corporation will be dealing with this; it’s not that I am unhappy about it but I just want to state that since the creation of Government of Nunavut, we know that there is a serious housing shortage in Nunavut.
The decentralized communities, because they’re decentralized, they may not be able to have more access to staff housing.
I personally think the issue of the housing shortage in every community; all the communities will be getting housing except for Resolute Bay.
I know not every community will be satisfied.
I would like an up to date report or something as to which communities have extremely serious housing shortages.
The Nunavut Housing Corporation should have an idea as to where there is a dire need for housing in some communities.
If they can be identified, I wanted to make a point on that and the lack of housing, staff housing in decentralized communities, I have a concern where the non-decentralized communities, will they be able to be provided with more housing?
That’s a concern I have.
I might be wrong because I don’t have all the information, but if that is the case, I will raise questions in regards to that and I will get more information.
The decentralized communities, I feel if they’re going to be provided with housing through Nunavut Housing Corporation, the decentralized communities to my understanding, the people who live in the community and get a job with government, because they already have housing in their community, they won’t require additional.
I remember that during Minister’s Statement for example, for Pangnirtung, when we were having a session, we couldn’t stay at a hotel because even though there are lots of people who don’t have jobs and are capable of working, there was no room at the hotel.
And it seems like they’re asking for employees to come in from out of town for those decentralized communities.
In the decentralized communities the local people already have housing and when there is a shortage of housing that could solve some problems where there wouldn’t be too much demand on getting housing for the employees.
There’s lot of times, especially here in Iqaluit, there is a dire need of housing here in Iqaluit.
Maybe it’s because the employees are recruited from other places instead of hiring the local people here.
I’m just using this as an example and that’s where I have a concern but for 2003/2004 capital estimates, I have no problem with them.
My comments are short.
I noticed the trend which is starting to develop now is we’ve been building duplexes for the last 3 years and my community was a recipient of the duplexes, 2 bedroom duplexes.
But I noticed the cost on constructing these units going up every year and I was going to ask the Minister later when we get into the details but I think it’s a Nunavut issue.
We know that there is a tremendous shortage of housing and are we getting good value for our dollars.
The corporation works hard at seeing that we are doing that, but I’m beginning to wonder now, if the cost of these duplexes, we couldn’t build a couple of three bedroom units instead of a duplex so we get more bedrooms. So I will be asking that later this afternoon.
I just want the Minister to think about that ahead of time, because I think the cost of duplexes are now close to four hundred thousand dollars and I think the cost of a three bedroom Access is close to two hundred; so it’s something that I wanted to bring up.
Duplexes are costing more.
I think we should be looking at 3 bedroom, small 3 bedroom access units.
It’s just something that somebody brought up to me, actually a contractor brought it up to me and said that at the cost of these duplexes, you can build 2, 3 small houses that we already have plans for. So when I heard that I said to myself, yeah that’s a good idea so I will be looking into that.
I’m really happy about this tenant purchase program; it’s a step in the right direction, with all these units.
And the corporation has been good about informing people about their programs that are available out there.
The Local Housing Association seems to be getting the program information out there.
The only thing that I got to caution about and it was brought up to me by a couple of my constituents, that if they’re going to buy those units, they have to be careful because a lot of people are not very knowledgeable about buying second hand houses.
And there is an old word, the money pit, we’ve seen that show a few times that, you know, you think you are getting a good deal, the next thing you know you got to, you know, after 5 years it’s probably cheaper to buy a new one. So when we’re showing off these tenant purchase programs I think we have to be very honest with the clients that are buying them about what the unit is worth.
Give no false impressions.
This is what it’s going to cost to get it up to standards that you want and this is, you know, the high cost of renovations in the north.
We all know it’s four or five times more than what it is in the south.
If somebody buys a unit in September or October, it could be a full year before they get the time to purchase new building material to upgrade it the following sealift.
This is a year away.
So I just wanted to list these off that it could be a problem.
I know the Corporation, if the individual doesn’t want it, that the Corporation will buy it back.
So, I just want our clients that are thinking about purchasing these units to be very well aware.
I remember back in the old GNWT in the mid 80s, that anyone who applied for a HAP house at the time, they were all brought into a classroom and they were taught the pros and cons of homeownership.
It was very informative for the clients to understand what was involved in homeownership.
I think the HAP owners today are still very pleased at what they got into.
Now they have a lot of equity in their homes and they seem to be maintaining them properly.
That’s the beginning of homeownership.
A lot of people have a lot of pride in those HAP units and the access units, so I think it’s a step in the right direction.
In the larger communities, like mine, there’s a lot more of a wage economy.
There seems to be an influx of government jobs and these people right off the bat want to get into home ownership.
So I’m just encouraging the department to just make people aware.
Because sometimes when people are not aware of a program, they won’t ask and then they get blindsided.
In my community, and I’m being community specific now, I’ve got four to five access units that are vacant.
The people have relocated to Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet and there are a couple of people that have moved south.
These units have been vacant for a couple of years now and there’s one unit that’s been vacant for five years.
The market isn’t that strong in my community right now for housing, private home ownership, because I think everybody that could get into private homeownership has.
I’ve got a half a dozen units sitting in Baker Lake and they’re empty.
So, I don’t know if you can put a blitz on trying to sell them or convert them into public housing. But I wish something would happen with these empty units because I get a lot of phone calls from people saying Glenn, why can’t these units be turned into public housing units.
They’re there, they’re built, and they’re empty for years now.
So I’m talking about access clients.
Because when a person receives a job in Iqaluit, or Rankin Inlet or something like that, they have to move pretty quickly.
Like within 30 days.
To sell a house is difficult.
It’s not difficult here but in my community right now, I’m starting to see a trend where it’s very difficult to sell a house.
And what happens in a couple of cases is the people have relocated and the houses have run out of fuel and frozen up.
Then there’s another 10 or 15 thousand dollar repair bill there.
That’s just my personal thoughts on housing.
I think the Corporation should be commended on trying to do as much as they can and as much as they have with the funds allocated to them.
I don’t have a lengthy comment to make but I must also commend the Nunavut Housing Corporation for doing a really good job.
One of the concerns from my constituents is why they are only building duplexes.
The Housing Working Group when they were going to the communities, that was a recommendation we made and this is being used now.
There have been concerns from the public, why they only built two bedroom units.
I think that the Nunavut Housing Corporation will have to adjust their thinking.
They should start building houses for bigger families like three bedrooms.
The old units are sometimes condemned in some communities.
When we were going to the communities a lot of times people see that in some communities, there are even older units and from what I know some of them are condemned.
And from the houses that I’ve seen, it might even be better in one community but they’re still being used in another community.
I don’t know what the procedure is in regards to that.
I know in my constituency in Igloolik, there is a unit, looking at it from the outside they use a honey bucket, and it drains just to the outside.
There’s no septic tank or anything.
I will be raising questions in this regards for the capital estimates.
I have very few comments to make.
I would first of all like to thank your Corporation for providing us with housing.
In 1966, when my father died, my mother had a very hard time but we were very pleased because we were provided housing by the government with heat and everything else.
If you look at the communities, some of them have had a population boom.
There are quite a large number of public housing units now.
But I do know that we can get more houses and improve on them.
In 1966, when we got our first house, it was a three bedroom.
It was a tiny little house and they’re a bit outdated today.
The stove, washer and dryer were all in a line because it was a very small house.
They might do the laundry and cooking at the same time in the very same location.
We look forward to seeing the people not having to use those houses anymore.
Some of them have no fridges because there’s no room in their house.
It says here that there’s a three bedroom.
But in the living room if you put the TV in there right beside the fridge or the stove then there’s basically no more room left for anything else.
So we have to do something about that.
It says here, if it’s a three bedroom, they pay a certain amount for rent.
We now have better housing and I would like to say thank you, even though Resolute Bay is not getting any additional housing.
In Resolute Bay we are well aware now of their situation and it was a concern of the Standing Committee also.
Housing is a very important issue.
They have Housing Boards of Directors in each community and I would also like to mention about the Tenant to Owner Program.
Some of the houses are in very poor shape. If a house was built in 1959, the market value of that house would be so much but they’re in very poor shape, they’re bought, and through the renovation program and even if they did access the renovation program it takes a very long time to get the materials in.
We look forward to fine tuning those types of programs.
The houses, those houses that are made available through the Tenant to Own Program are just about totally worthless.
They’re very small, they don’t have a living room but they do have bedrooms.
I’ll have additional questions afterwards.
There are one bedroom houses being built now or duplexes.
They’re building duplexes now and if a fire occurred in one of the units then the other one goes too.
I think that this should factored in if you’re going to be deciding on what types of houses you are going to be building. From what I hear it’s cheaper to build the duplex because the building foundation and piles are cheaper when you build a duplex instead of a detached unit.
Mr. Havioyak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you to the Minister and his staff for coming.
I just want to comment a little bit in regards to the housing shortage in many of the communities in Nunavut.
For example, as I know in Kugluktuk, there are many people who are still waiting, who are on the waiting list who have applied for social housing.
Anyway this problem is not only in the community of Kugluktuk but as well in many of the communities and there are people waiting for social housing.
Just perhaps I would ask this question later on as to how the housing programs are prioritized.
I would like that information just for information. Because some of the communities would like that information and I have heard about the problems in regards to social housing when there has been fire damage.
As well, one house has been burnt. How does this replacement program work?
Those are my comments for now.
Mr. Chairman, I welcome the minister and his staff to the Assembly.
I’ve known both of the staff members there for quite some time.
I know Mr. Akoak travelled all the way from Arviat; I welcome him to our fine capital city or your fine capital city, too, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, there’s one other thing that this government has said right from day one was that housing was one of the top two priorities of this government and you know, I think I got a little excited last year when we saw the estimates for capital for housing go up to $24 million from $17 million.
And Mr. Chairman, just to give you an indication of how far things have gone since the division, 1997 or 1998 when I was working with the housing corporation here in Iqaluit, the total Baffin budget, just for the Baffin alone was $25 million.
And now, you know, up to 24 for the whole territory, last year and knocked down again to $20 million this year.
And I’d like to see this corporation and the department of education being one of the first two, the first two departments that we see when it comes to capital and O and M budgets. They’re the priority and we should be putting our money where our mouth is more than what we are, I think.
I’m sure that it’s not the lack of trying by the housing corporation minister, but maybe I had a little problem trying to convince the finance minister to let a little more money flow in, in his department.
But I’d like to see, I know it’s an effort that the corporation should continue to strive for it to get more funding to deal with the crisis in Nunavut and the shortage of housing.
It’s been raised by every member in this Assembly, this severe crisis and housing shortages in all our communities.
In the minister’s opening comments there were a number of things.
One of the things that I’d be interested in mentioning first off is the retrofit, there’s 9 left, I’m glad they’re all going to be done this year.
I think, and those again, those were supposed to be all completed in ’99 and I’m sure it’s high time those are going to be completed now.
You know these improvements that we do put into these houses saved us money in the long run because you know the decrepit shape that some of them were in, the O and M costs soar.
Also in the minister’s opening comments, he talked about the $2.5 million that was or will be block funded to district offices for emergency repair program, Nunavut down payment assistance program, the home repair program and the senior citizens home repair program.
I’m going to be looking forward to asking the minister some questions on some of those programs and, and how successful they’ve been in the past and some of the criteria on them.
Also as mentioned by the Chair of the committee and some of my other colleagues in the new TOP program, in the minister’s opening comments they said that they’d be selling these units to the tenants and then getting the tenants to apply for funding to repair the units that they’ve purchased.
It’d be like selling a broken bicycle to someone, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know why the corporation won’t do the necessary repairs to these units prior to selling them to the tenants. As the Chair of the committee expressed concerns over, you know, sometimes you just end up with a money pit and I’m sure that the minister and his staff agree that that’s what a lot of these units have been to the Corporation for a number of years.
There’s an aging inventory of units that we have and the older they get the more money it costs us to operate and maintain them.
So I think that’s something that they should look at doing instead of just giving a little bit of money for the tenant to fix a few things.
They should be fixed up prior to them being sold to the tenant.
I guess once that happens, then it’s all the tenants’ responsibility and the Corporation just washes their hands of the problem.
One of the other things that was also mentioned by the chair of the committee and he applauded the efforts of the Corporation to consult with the housing organizations and authorities I guess, there’s only one authority, on the formulation of that program.
Not only the TOP program but on the rent scale that I’d like to, you know, probably look at asking some questions a little later on, on what type of feedback that the Corporation got from LHOs and the Local Housing Authority here in Iqaluit on any concerns or issues that they had with any of the programs and how they were addressed.
I’m sure there’s much more Mr. Chairman, it’s just a matter of coming across it. I just want to reiterate the fact that I think that, you know, we said that this was one of our top two priorities and it’s third on the list here and it should be in the top two.
So I’d like to urge the minister and his staff to continue to push the Minister of Finance to improve their budget.
We will then move onto the Capital Estimates for 2003/2004.
Page 12-4.
We’ll start from 12-4.
If you have any questions on the page, please feel free to ask.
And for the information of the members, we are dealing with Capital Estimates and we also have amended C 29 that you can refer to if you want to see the 5 year Capital Plan.
Any questions on 12-4, Nunavut Housing Corporation.
I have a question if it’s okay with you Mr. Chairman, on the opening comments of the minister.
Chairperson (interpretation): Yes, go ahead.
If I can read it.
I’ll keep it as brief as possible.
It says here many of the Housing Corporation’s units are in need of repair and renovation.
We have 9 Webber units.
What are Webber units?
That’s reference to several years ago in the 80’s on the design of certain units were brought to construction throughout the Northwest Territories. They were all referred to as Webber Unit.
I think it’s a pretty common reference for that particular style of house.
Are they going to be fixing up the padding and the gravel that the houses are built on?
I have to correct myself; it was actually the 70’s I think that were the bulk of the construction for those units took place and part of the early 80’s.
But anyways, Mr. Chairman, it’s primarily actually the retrofit of the construction of the house itself, with its windows primarily, interior renovations, installation, more so than the foundation.
Chairperson (interpretation): Are you done Mr. Alakannuark.
Any other question and please keep in mind that you have 10 minutes to ask your question.
Mr. Chairman, on the Minister’s opening comments he talked about $2.5 million dollars is going to be block funded to the district offices on various program and the home ownership program.
I was just wondering where those numbers are in this budget here?
Hon. Kelvin Ng: Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In respect of the break down by Regional District Offices, if that’s what the member’s referring to, then it’s $1.26 million dollars for the Baffin, $190 thousand dollars for the Kivalliq, and $550 thousand dollars for the Kitikmeot.
I guess I was just wondering where it showed here in the budget.
I can’t seem to see where you have those numbers under those programs that are listed here in the Capital Budget.
I’m just wondering if it was under something else in here that I’m not recognizing.
Can he indicate where in here those numbers are?