Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): I move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik), that Mr. Deputy Speaker do now leave the Chair and the House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.

Motion agreed to, and the House resolved itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty with the honourable member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson) in the Chair for the Department of Housing; and the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) in the Chair for the Department of Natural Resources.

Mr. Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 255 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Housing. When the committee last sat, it had been considering item 1.(b)(1) on page 83 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): When we ended off last time, we were talking about Lord Selkirk Park, I believe. The member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) had gotten in on asking some questions, and I wanted to continue on in that vein.

I want to get some quite specific information. We had been discussing the problem with vacancy rates at Lord Selkirk Park and other public housing developments and the costs that that is having on the Department of Housing. So I want to spend a little bit more time dealing with that, and I guess, just first of all, I want to get some fairly specific information from the minister on this.

First of all, though, just to confirm that Lord Selkirk Park has had their mortgage paid; is that correct? That is one of the developments that is paid off, as it were?

Hon. Jack Reimer (Minister of Housing): Yes, I believe that is true. That has no outstanding debt on it.

Ms. Cerilli: So what kind of detailed information do you have with you from the staff here in terms of the costs at Lord Selkirk Park annually and monthly? I am interested in getting some more detailed information in terms of maintenance costs, and I know I have got some information with me about maintenance costs budgeted, different developments. Let me see here. This is modernization of improvements. That is what I am interested in finding out, modernization of improvements, maintenance and any other costs that are associated with specifically Lord Selkirk Park and to find out as well what amounts you are generating in terms of rent revenue from that development and specifically what the vacancies there are costing you right now.

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Mr. Reimer: We are just trying to get the figures because we have to use them at different levels in the statistic book, but the amount of units that we have got vacant in the total units is 126 units vacant out of 314, which represents a 40 percent vacancy rate in that complex. The member was asking for the amount of money that is generated out of that unit. It will naturally fluctuate by month because of the vacancy rate, but the latest figure was just over $65,000 per month that is generated from those units.

As to the maintenance, we do not have that figure here, but we can get those figures for the member.

Ms. Cerilli: I would appreciate that. Just considering that this development has its mortgage paid, what the opportunity is then for it to not be a money loser but a moneymaker in terms of the rent coming in.

I would appreciate if I could get similar information for the other developments. Maybe divide them--I know I have asked before--of the ones that have their mortgages paid for already, and how many of the other developments, particularly in the core area, the ones that are high vacancy, to look at the cost there for maintenance and modernization improvement, just to finish off on that thought then, to get that information as well. I am sure that you have this similar to the information you sent me from last year. I am sure the department has all this already, and it is not a big problem of getting that to me for each of the different developments, particularly in the city of Winnipeg.

Mr. Reimer: I think it is just a matter of, as the member mentioned, getting the right correlation of the lines and the expenses towards it, and we can endeavour to get that for the member, sure.

Ms. Cerilli: Thank you. Just then generally, how many other developments--and I am looking at this list, the ones that are having real problems with vacancies, but maybe I should look more at the ones just generally and not focus just on the ones that are having problems with vacancies.

I want to find out how many in our portfolio in the province have their mortgages paid for, and if you have some kind of figure that we are still owing--that is probably in the Estimates book here somewhere--the amount we are still owing in terms of mortgage.

Mr. Reimer: The majority of the units that are still in the Housing portfolio would still have a fair amount of debt associated with them because the vast majority of the units that were built were in the '70s, which were subject to 50-year mortgages. So there is still a fair amount of money outstanding on them. In general terms, the outstanding mortgages, totally, would be somewhere between $300 million and $350 million that is still outstanding as a figure owing on these properties.

Ms. Cerilli: I want to move into a related area. It has to do with the way that the Manitoba Housing Authority, the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation are addressing the whole issue of identifying properties to declare as surplus. I was interested in the Estimates book this time to see that there is actually more detailed description. It says, prepare plus or minus 1,500 various legal documents for sales, transfers, leases, loans, guarantees, discharges, right-of-ways, subdivisions, easements, security renewals, et cetera. Then it says, dispose of real properties declared surplus or acquired by foreclosure.

I have a lot of questions in this area. Maybe to start off with, I would just to ask you to define what surplus means and the process that you use for declaring properties as surplus.

Mr. Reimer: There is a fair amount of involvement in looking at the Housing portfolio as to coming to any type of decision regarding whether projects are surplus and whether they should be offered for sale, and what the criteria are for listing projects for sale. We do have what we call an asset review committee set up within the board, which is charged with looking at the portfolio in the various venues. What it has been doing is looking at not only housing material or housing stock here in Winnipeg, but also throughout Manitoba with the idea of looking at areas of whether there is merit to declaring the projects surplus, taking into consideration their vacancy rates, to a degree the cost of repairs that is associated with these buildings, the ongoing maintenance of the building or buildings in trying to come to some sort of direction on it.

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It is a fairly detailed and quite a long process because we do not want to just be selling things for the sake of selling them; there has to be a logical return or logical realization that we are not just having a fire sale on these buildings for the sake of getting out of them. There has to be either a logical and a reasonable reason for declaring the building surplus. Even if it is declared surplus, that does not mean necessarily that it is going to be sold because of the fact that a lot of times, because of location and market conditions, it just may not be feasible for anybody to buy it. We have a lot of buildings in the remote areas, in small towns, that have been declared surplus for years, and they sit on our books year after year after year as surplus units, and we cannot do anything about it.

That does not mean that we are going to just sell them for a buck or something like that. We look at trying to get a fairly reasonable return on them or try to recuperate the taxpayers' investment in it as best we can, so there are units--I do not know whether we have the number that are sitting on our books right now declared surplus, but I do know that in some of our outlying areas they have been on there for a long time. They have not been picked up; they just sit there. So, in the meantime, we will utilize them for housing, and if there becomes an opportunity to possibly move them into a different sector or under a different ownership, we will move those people if they are still in there into different accommodations or try to accommodate them that way. So there are a fair number of variables that come into play before there is a decision as to how the units are disposed of.

Ms. Cerilli: I would appreciate it if you could go into a little bit more detail in this area. I mean, you have mentioned a few things, maintenance costs, the vacancy rates. As you said, there is a very specific sort of process or formula that is considered. I am interested in both getting a little bit more detail here and now, and then seeing if you could provide for me, following up our Estimates here, something in writing.

Mr. Reimer: It has been pointed out that in a lot of the rural areas, this is where there is the situation of surplus properties that have sat for a long time and nothing has happened with them. It is just because of the lack of demand to pick up these units. A good example is duplexes where we will have one person in there continually for upwards of two years or more, where we cannot rent the other one.

The member asked for the criteria. It varies in extent because of the locations as to what is going to dictate being declared surplus, other than, like I mentioned before, chronic vacancies and the fact that they do not fit into the town's scheme of people wanting to stay there, or they just do not want those units, and so they become surplus to us. If the member wants, I can get the list of surplus vacant property that has already been sitting on our book and possibly even whether it can have a time frame involved with how long some of them have been vacant. We can fix that up. We can get that for the member.

Ms. Cerilli: I am going to try a bit of a different approach on this. What is the government's goal in this whole area of doing this? You said that there is ongoing assessing, and there is a committee that is continually dealing with this whole area. What is the government's goal?

Mr. Reimer: I think that our primary goal and one of our mandates with the Housing department is to be there to supply affordable housing to the citizens of Manitoba in a manner that is the most efficient, not only for the users but for the providers of the units. The evaluation that I am referring to, I think, is healthy in that we have to be aware of where there is no longer need, so there are no longer demands. It is usually that the "no longer the demand" for housing will dictate whether we will sell the unit or declare it surplus and try to sell it. That is usually the criteria.

The utilization of public housing, if there is a demand for it, and they are being utilized in the rural areas, and there are units, we will keep filling these units. It is not that we are on a mandate of total dissolving of all of our assets. Our primary function as public housing is to supply housing to people on an affordable basis.

Ms. Cerilli: Well, it is kind of concerning because, similar to the issue I was raising in the House during Question Period, the government is deciding on the amount of social housing or public housing that they are providing based on, to a large extent, the vacancy rate. It sounds like it from what you were just saying. There may be all sorts of other problems that are related to that vacancy that should be dealt with prior to just declaring those properties surplus. I mean, I realize, particularly in rural Manitoba, that there is a declining population in a lot of communities, that the population is not growing, but there certainly are numbers, thousands of families and seniors in our province that need subsidized housing. That is why I am so concerned about the response here today and your approach to determining to declare them surplus and try and sell them off.

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You know, I do have a list with me of the properties from '95-96--I guess this list is from--and at that time there were 10 units under consideration for possible sale and relocation. I am not sure if that is across the whole province. There were some that were temporarily rented, 13. There were 71 that were in the process of public tender for sale, and the units that were sold and lost from the social housing portfolio were 89. I am wondering if this year--how much those numbers have changed.

You can also respond to my other points that I made about the way that this is being done and the whole problem of sort of the lowest common denominator approach. If there is no one wanting to move in, even though you have got all these different issues around why there is a vacancy rate, it seems that the bottom line becomes, you are losing money, there is a vacancy rate, so let us see how we can put them up as surplus.

Mr. Reimer: The member was referring to the need for social housing in the various sectors of our population, whether it is the youth or the social housing--pardon me, not the youth, but the seniors and social housing. I guess our mandate has always been that we would try to accommodate and utilize our units because if they are not being filled or being occupied, naturally the costs are still there, the fixed costs, and the maintenance costs are fixed towards these units, so it is better for us to have them occupied.

We talked the other day about the rental committee that was formed to try to market these units, and we have had some very good success with these initially as pointed out with Osborne and Carriage Road in attracting tenants there. This is something on a learning curve in a sense with this marketing committee. We are monitoring it fairly close to see whether we can sort of expand this or how we can better utilize getting more people into our units.

We have also gone to a trial basis of some market rents in a few areas. We have done it here in the city of Winnipeg at Columbus Courts. We have done it in six towns in rural Manitoba looking at market rent so that we could attract people in some of the smaller towns, where the town's council and local town people have told us that there are units there. Based on the G&R--RGI, pardon me, that people do not want to live in them, we implemented market rent in some of these six towns just to see how we can utilize them. We have done some upgrades in Rapid City to utilize some of our housing stock in that town, converting some of the units, the bachelors to one bedroom, so we have been able to try to get better usage that way.

These are some of the things that we are trying to do to get better utilization of our stock. We have the stock there. We have the ability to put people in them. It is just a matter of people having the confidence that the housing stock that we have for them is of a quality that they would want to live in. It is something that is ongoing. We continue to work towards that. The member mentioned about an updated list for the surplus. We can provide an updated list on that which she has, whether there are any new units that we are looking at. So these are some of the other areas that we can work towards.

Ms. Cerilli: How quickly can you get me that list?

Mr. Reimer: We should be able to have it within a week for sure.

Ms. Cerilli: One of the other areas that is a real concern in this whole issue of privatizing or selling off what is deemed surplus properties is what seems to be a real focus and trend on getting rid of the single-family or duplexes. I am wondering if that is a specific policy objective and if the minister has concerns about that, if he has discussed this with any of the community groups that have been dealing with this and he can share with me his perspective on that.

Mr. Reimer: One of the advantages of being the Minister of Housing and also the Minister of Seniors is that I get a chance to do some touring around to some of the seniors groups in seniors homes and seniors projects in various parts of Manitoba and various towns and also meeting, at the same time, with some of the local town's council and town's alderman or reeves and talking to them. Naturally when they find out that I am Housing minister, they will always direct their comments to some of the housing stock that may be in and around their town.

A lot of the direction is towards the local town wanting to buy the stock, buy the single-family homes or the duplexes that are in these towns, and I have no problems with that if the local town wants to take it upon themselves to provide a place of residence for some of their senior citizens or some of their townspeople to stay in their town. They look at it as an asset that they can utilize instead of its being vacant which sometimes it is because of our restrictions because of the RGI. A lot of people will not live in those units. So they say to me, well, can we buy these units and then we can do whatever we want with them. I am of the opinion that, if it is for the betterment of the town and the townspeople feel that they can rent them out to people who are in need, whether it is seniors or young families that are wanting to move to the area, we should try to accommodate them.

Our first option in any type of sale of a piece of property is usually to the person that is living in it, and if they do not want it, why then we will offer it to I believe it is the neighbour next and then from the neighbour it will go to the town for a decision and then it will go to one of our government departments, like Natural Resources or Highways or something like that. They may want to utilize it for a residence maybe for part of their work crew, and then we will post it ourselves, I believe, public tender. Then from there, if we do not get any response, it goes to a listing. It goes to at least half a dozen various channels before it becomes listed with Royal Lepage or something like that.

It has been pointed out that it is following what is similar in all government departments, under the general manual of administration.

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Ms. Cerilli: I appreciate your telling me this sort of process that you go through, but it still seems like the issue is that the government is initiating this process, that you are the ones that are looking to divest the single-family dwellings as a priority. That is what I am wanting to confirm, if that is what is happening, if you are initiating this and if you are trying to focus on these kinds of properties because you think they are easier to sell. What is the policy direction here?

Mr. Reimer: No, it is not targeted towards one specific area or whether it is single-family units or duplexes. We will review all our portfolio in all components, but it is not geared towards one particular area.

Ms. Cerilli: You have gone into some description about the way it has been handled in rural areas where the municipality is approaching you with some interest, and I have here a whole range of communities, Birtle, Cartwright, Churchill, Manitou, all sorts of communities. But then we get to Winnipeg and there are a lot more single-family units, and I cannot imagine that the City of Winnipeg is knocking on your door wanting to buy these properties. So what is the story on the city of Winnipeg? There are 18--this is again from '95--single-family units in the Wolseley area, 14 in Brooklands--actually more than that in the Wolseley area and then some out in sort of the north end. Who is purchasing these properties in Winnipeg? What is the policy direction in that area? What is your goal in this area?

Mr. Reimer: The units that have been referred to are usually very small homes, very old homes, where the maintenance and the upkeep on them have become very high. The realization of continuance with these homes, the decision is made that we will offer them for sale, and if there is an interest in them, then we would sell them.

What I can do for the member is also provide an updated list. I was asking whether we had a number on the amount of units that we have sold since the list that you have. We can get that list and get an updated list for you. The numbers that are there may still be fairly the same, because I do not know how many of these units here have sold. But we can find out, and I can get you an updated list as to the numbers that have sold.

I have been told that usually these are fairly old, turn-of-the-century homes. In fact, not-turn-of-the-century, I guess they are very old--'50s and '60s. In fact I think we have some homes that were just after the Second World War, wartime houses they are called, and those are being sold too.

Ms. Cerilli: I guess that the concern in this area, particularly in the areas that I described--Brooklands, the Wolseley area and the north end--where there is a real problem with stability for family housing, when you have public housing that provides for low-income families to be able to have some ability to stay in that area, it is very important to the community. I know that I have sent letters and drawn this to the minister's attention on a few occasions. I visited the homes around the Arlington area, in particularly Evanson. There were a number of properties that were being sold, and they had tenants in them. The tenants did not want to move.

The whole issue--I think the minister even raised this in his opening statement--the importance of having stable housing so that kids can stay in one neighbourhood, go to one school for a number of years, and how that adds to their quality of life, their health, their education, their whole future. When I just add up the number of single-family units, there are 55 units from that one year that were being divested, and how many of those are in some of those neighbourhoods? That is having a real impact on those neighbourhoods. These inner-city areas want to have low-income, family-sized dwellings so that they can maintain a support for those families to stay in those communities.

There is the whole problem in some areas of the kids transferring enrollment in a school by 100 percent. In some inner-city schools, their entire enrollment turns over in one school year, and it is all related to the availability of having housing for the size of some of these families to meet their needs. So I think that is the argument for maintaining some of these single-family dwellings in the Winnipeg areas, especially when we know that there is no new money for social housing coming down the pipe, especially when you are also eliminating funding for some of the rent supplement programs. So we are running into a situation where there are going to be fewer options for low-income families, especially if they have more than two children, two or three children.

I guess what I am doing is trying to make a plea or a pitch to have that considered. I know that there are a number of community groups in that area now that are concerned about this. They have contacted me, and they do not want to lose any more single-family dwellings that are owned by MHA in that community. If this is being considered at all in your department as you are setting your priorities--I mean, you have talked about what your mandate is and we have talked about issues around safety. Well, if there are certain neighbourhoods where there are no criteria on who buys these kind of properties and they are bought up and they are divided into smaller suites or bought by people who want to use them as a rental property and then they are divided up and rented off as boarding houses or even just small apartments, that is going to contribute to the kind of decay in some of these core area neighbourhoods, where we want to see some families be able to stay in there and stay involved in schools and all the other things I have described.

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Mr. Reimer: I think that the member is alluding to a lot of things that we talked about before as regarding the stability of the community, and one of the things naturally with any type of sense of community that is built is the residents themselves and the fact that they stay in the one particular area and they become part of the community. The units that have been alluded to are units that are not torn down. They are units that stay within the community's single-family dwellings, and they become still part of the community. It can give enhanced community values when you have people who take ownership of their dwelling and they become part of the community that way, too. But anything that enhances community development or a sense of community is something that I think we look as positive aspects of a community, because you do not get this high turnover in schools and you do not get this constant migration of the young people from school to school.

I would think that in social housing we have always tried to accommodate people in part of the community. We are looking at trying to go to possibly even a market-rent type of philosophy with some of these units to encourage people to stay in there, so it is the role models of people who can get out and work, get a job and show their neighbours that there is a better way to do things. So there are different ways to promote community unity. I think we can try to work towards those things in utilizing our housing stock the best way we can.

Ms. Cerilli: Can the minister tell me if they have done any tracking of some of the properties that have been sold in the past, just specifically the single-family dwellings, to see how many of them have been bought and are now being used as rental property, and if they are being divided into a number of suites? I mean, I am not suggesting, as the minister said, that they are being torn down, but I think that would be interesting to find out.

Mr. Reimer: It has been pointed out, we have never really done a follow-up in the sense as to how that property has evolved since or if it was sold. So we really do not have that type of information to give any type of definitive answer as to how it ends up, where it ends up, whether it gets subdivided, or how it is utilized after it is sold. A lot of these are very small units, small homes. Some of them would most likely still be single-family homes.

Ms. Cerilli: I was just saying the ones that I have been in, particularly in the Wolseley area, are big homes. They are single-family dwellings, but they have four bedrooms and three storeys. Maybe some of the ones in the rural areas are different; they may be bungalows and smaller. I am not disputing that.

Considering that the minister is also the Minister of Urban Affairs, I mean this is a real big issue. I was going to get into this sort of later when we are talking more about the research division. The whole concern is that there is not a lot of attention being paid to certain neighbourhoods in the core area. Even in other parts of the city where there is an increase in the number of properties that are slum housing, they are scooped up by absentee landlords to become rental properties, divided into small apartments. In many instances, the owner, the landlord, is bringing in rent from low-income people more than twice what they are paying on the mortgage. This is how a lot of people are making a lot of money on the backs of people who are really economically disadvantaged.

I would hate to see that Manitoba Housing Authority is contributing to that by selling them properties that are, prior to that, being lived in by families who are low income or are using all of those five bedrooms for their family. So I would like the minister to respond to that to make sure that is not happening. I am going to get into this a bit more in the research area. I think this is a whole other area that someone in the government has to look at, either through Urban Affairs or through Housing to try and deal with this trend. There are all sorts of other options we could talk about in terms of how to provide affordable housing for families, because that is not a way to do it by having that kind of model where it is these landlords that are able to really not maintain their properties.

Oftentimes it is millions and millions of dollars in social allowance that is going into these housing apartments or into these inner-city neighbourhoods. That money is not staying in that neighbourhood, it is all leaving, because the landlords certainly do not live there and the owners of the properties. As I said they are often taking in rent on those properties twice as much or more than they are paying on the mortgage because of the many apartments that they have got the house divided up into. What ends up happening is that people that are living there on low income, they have paid the mortgage. This is happening in Manitoba Housing Authority properties as well. They have lived there for 25 years; they have more than paid for the mortgage. They have nothing to show for it, but it is a real concern if Manitoba Housing Authority is going to start contributing to that problem by selling their properties to individuals that are going to use them for that kind of entrepreneurial activity--I say with tongue in cheek.

Mr. Reimer: Well, I guess, when you look at the sale of some of the homes and units and things like that, to a degree you hope that it has been bought by people that are consciously wanting to stay in the area. There is an awful lot of more private ownership that are using their units for subdivision--or not so much subdivision, but for multiple tenant use and things like that. We, in Manitoba Housing, naturally can use our guidelines and our parameters of occupancy in how many people are in our units. Once the unit is in private ownership, the only regulations that can dictate then are the City of Winnipeg's zoning regulations and occupancies of that line where there can be restrictions put on for use as a tenement house or a rooming house or something like that. That would have to come into effect through the City of Winnipeg zoning applications.

We are not slum landlords. We are very conscientious of the efforts that the staff and the department put out in trying to maintain the quality of our units. Once they move off our stream of public ownership into private ownership, we do not have the authority to dictate who or what lives in there other than how that person so chooses to change it. If he or she decides to change it and they want to make it into a rooming home, I would think that they have to go through the normal channels of zoning in the city and get applications. The neighbours have an opportunity for input, for public presentation and hearings on whether they want that particular building to make that type of change. I do not know how we as a government or as a Housing department can have that type of direct say as to what a private individual can do or cannot do with their home once they purchase it.

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Ms. Cerilli: Well, I must say that after seeing what occurred with Behnke Road where you tore down perfectly good housing--or it has not been torn down yet, I understand it is still there--but, you know, it is going to be torn down so that Home Depot can build a parking lot, and it is perfectly good housing that had just had a few thousand dollars of renovations put in. I am not surprised by your answer, but I do not know if legally you could also put something in the offer to purchase or the sale agreement that required it to be maintained as a single-family dwelling to avoid the problem that I am getting at. So really that is something else that you can look into, and I am wondering if you would agree to that.

Mr. Reimer: Sure.

Ms. Cerilli: I am wanting to get into a few specific questions then while we are talking about this whole area of sale of Manitoba Housing Authority properties. I have a few that have been brought to my attention. First of all, I will start with the rural area. I noticed from being in Portage la Prairie that, on the one hand, there was some very large modernization improvements going on. They seem to have a lot of social public housing in Portage la Prairie. Then on the other hand there were a whole two streets I believe that had been sold, and I am just wanting for the minister to confirm if that is the case and if he can tell me who those properties were sold to and what the value of the sale was.

Mr. Reimer: I believe the units that the member is referring to are what they call Chelsea Terrace in Portage la Prairie, and that was 77 units that were sold at that time. They were a complex that was built in the 1960s. There were also, I believe in the 1980s, some sold to the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council. There were 11 units sold at that time to the Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council. Are there any other questions on that?

Ms. Cerilli: So what was the vacancy rate in that complex prior to it being sold?

Mr. Reimer: You know, this complex here was operating under what we refer to as market rate rental and not RGI. The vacancy rate at the time was somewhere around 4 or 5 percent vacancy when it was sold. It was scheduled, as mentioned, being a fairly old complex built in the '60s, it was requiring more and more maintenance and upkeep. So there was a decision made to see whether there was the possibility of realization of moneys owing against it and whether there was an interest. It was put through the process of offering for sale, and there was a purchaser that came forth and bought it from us.

Ms. Cerilli: Besides the Ojibway Tribal Council.

Mr. Reimer: Yes, that is true.

Ms. Cerilli: Could you tell me who that other purchaser was?

Mr. Reimer: It was a numbered company.

Ms. Cerilli: Who were the principal owners?

Mr. Reimer: I have been told that we were dealing with an agent. We do not have those names here, but I imagine we can get them for the member.

Ms. Cerilli: I would appreciate that. The tenants, there was a fairly low vacancy rate there then when it was sold, so your whole sort of formula or rationale that we just discussed in terms of declaring units surplus seems to not completely apply there. I mean, 4 percent vacancy is not too bad, so I am wondering what happened there in terms of the criteria or the assessment process and what happened to all those tenants. Are they still there? How does the rent compare now for those tenants now?

Mr. Reimer: I have been told that the increase in rents would fall under The Residential Tenancies Act, so the rent is controlled to an extent that way. There are 20 of the units that are still under the RGI formula, so they would stay under that formula while they are still in residence at this complex. The vacancy rate that the member mentioned, too, as talked about before, was part of the decision making in looking at coming to decisions on this property, but also other factors were brought into play. One of the factors was the fact that the maintenance and upkeep on it was very significant, and it was felt that was a prime consideration in looking at some sort of proposal for devolution of this particular unit.

So it is a combination of events. It is not only the vacancy rate, but it is also the market conditions, the building conditions, the maintenance program that is associated with the building, the upkeep. There are many factors that are brought into consideration before it is considered for sale.

Ms. Cerilli: Okay, but my question was, at least 21 of the units are still the existing tenants that were there when the sale took place, but there was a total of 77 units, so it sounds like there could have been a lot of other tenants that moved after this, or some of them may be there but now they are just--

Mr. Reimer: No, I have been told that the existing tenants are still there. The number that I was referring to, the 20, was 20 of them are still on the RGI formula.

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Ms. Cerilli: Well, this is really getting confusing because I thought you said that one of the reasons that this development was sold was because it was on a market-rent system.

Mr. Reimer: I should have been a little bit more definitive. It had a combination of market rent and RGI. I just alluded to one of them.

Ms. Cerilli: Okay, well, let us go through the same series of questions then in terms of some of the properties in Winnipeg: 1585 Notre Dame Avenue, Milton Court, I believe it is called. It is four apartment blocks that each have 15 units. Has that been declared surplus? What is the situation there in terms of vacancy, and is it in the process of being declared surplus?

Mr. Reimer: No, it has not been declared surplus.

Ms. Cerilli: But is it in the process of being considered?

Mr. Reimer: No, not at this time.

Ms. Cerilli: How long does it take for something to go from not at this time being considered to being sold, or to being considered and being declared surplus?

Mr. Reimer: Well, that sounded like a bit of a vague question when I said, "not at this time," but we have no immediate plans to declare 1585 surplus or to go through the procedure. The member must remember that, even though sometimes these units may have a designation of being surplus, that does not necessarily mean that they will be sold because market dictates will say whether there is a sale for it.

More importantly, the pragmatic approach is that we are not in the business to just sell things just for the sake of getting rid of them, because, as pointed out, a lot of these units have a tremendous amount of mortgage applied against them and we have to be able to justify any type of large discrepancy between what has come forth as a purchase price and what is on the books as an outstanding mortgage. Government prudent management dictates that we have to pay off that mortgage because CMHC wants their money. So, even though we theoretically, and just hypothetically if we had a unit that all we can get for it is, say, $400,000 and it has got an outstanding mortgage of $650,000 or $700,000 still on it, common sense would say, hey, we cannot eat that amount of money. Our Treasury Board will not allow us to just go out and holus-bolus sell off these properties. There has to be either a break-even, or a very, very close break-even, point or realization of the monies that we are asking for and what are coming back.

There are not that many units that can carry themselves in a sense of being in a position where the mortgage is paid off. There are not that many because with a portfolio of approximately 18,000 units and an outstanding mortgage of $350 million when most of them were built in the '70s, there is still an awful lot of money owing on an awful lot of our properties. So it is prudent for us to get the best utilization from those monies, and the declaring of surplus is not something that is going to be a great source of revenue for this government because there is just too much money outstanding. The long-term mortgages that are outstanding, and the fact that the CMHC wants their money, no matter what happens, their first dollar out, makes decision making in selling units very, very tenuous at times as to try to rationalize selling things just for the sake of selling them when there are such huge losses, potential losses that can be associated with trying to clear the mortgage off. So being declared surplus and actually being realized on a sale sometimes are far, far apart.

Ms. Cerilli: I guess I would add to that, it is hard to rationalize these decisions, or make these decisions, when there is also such a large need for low-income housing.

I am going to ask a couple of questions here maybe that are more policy related then and not so much just dealing with the whole privatization and the specifics that we have been, but how then does the government deal with a position put forward by an organization like AIM, the Apartment Investors Association of Manitoba? They see Manitoba Housing Authority and Manitoba Housing as in competition with them. They see it as an unfair competition, that subsidized housing is unfair competition in the market housing. How does the minister respond to that?

Mr. Reimer: I guess, government will always have a social responsibility to look after people that cannot look after themselves. One of the responsibilities of government is to be there for the people that are in need, or that are in a destitute situation, because of circumstances either controlled or uncontrolled that they find themselves in a situation where they have to have housing or lodging. Through the last while, through governments, we have been there to provide housing.

In the '70s and '80s when the federal government was involved on a 50-50 cost-shared basis and there was an expansion, public housing was there set up as a vehicle for people to get into housing as they move through their economic cycle of life, to move on to better housing, upgraded housing or a different type of housing. Public housing was there as a vehicle to move through. What has evolved is that public housing has become more social housing.

I believe almost 65 or 70 percent of our housing stock is with people on social assistance. An even higher percentage is single parents, usually the female as the head of the house in our housing. In fact, I think I alluded to statistics in my opening comments. Our position has been that there is a need, there is a value for government, to be there in this time of personal crisis or family crisis in providing housing. We do not shirk our responsibility away from there. I think what is coming to fruition in extent is the fact that we are now faced with a situation where we have an awful lot of units. We have about 18,000 units under Manitoba Housing.

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We have been faced with the fact that the federal government is now wanting to devolve itself completely out of their social housing. They are wanting the Manitoba government to take over their 17,000 or 18,000 units and a mortgage portfolio of around $650 million. We are looking at a potential of a portfolio of over 36,000 units and an outstanding mortgage of about a billion dollars that the taxpayers of Manitoba would take on as their responsibility for fulfilment. These are enormous challenges and changes that the taxpayers of Manitoba have to come to some sort of reckoning on.

I guess, what we are doing is we are taking a position of standing back for a moment and saying, where is the best utilization of these units? We are recognizing the fact that there is a need in Manitoba for social housing, but to what degree, to what depth, to what involvement and to what time? What is the best utilization of our resources? Some of our resources are old. They are getting worn out. Some of them were built shortly after the Second World War, the so-called wartime houses, where they were just clapboards. A tremendous amount of cost involved with units in heating them and keeping them upgraded is just astronomical.

You are dealing with people on fixed income; more and more people are moving into our social housing. So the evaluation of our social policy and our housing policy is ongoing. I think that it is just something that--

Ms. Cerilli: On a point of order, I just want to bring the minister back around to my question, which is: How does he deal with the position of the Apartment Investors Association of Manitoba that are saying that Manitoba Housing is unfair competition?

I do not know if this is the answer he gives to AIM when they talk to him, but I am just wanting to get him to specifically answer my question.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The honourable member for Radisson does not have a point of order. It is a dispute over the facts.

Mr. Reimer: I was trying to bring it into context, I guess. Maybe I was getting on a little bit different direction. But I guess the association of apartment owners will always have a concern actually, because we are to a degree in the housing business, setting up with our rental programs and our facilities for utilization by people. I do not get lobbied or overly lobbied to an extent. I am not too sure what type of overtures they make to the department.

I think that they recognize that our responsibility is geared towards a certain aspect of Manitoba population. I do not get that much exposure or criticism from them in the way we take in our social housing programs.

Ms. Cerilli: Given everything that we have just been discussing though about the process for assessing the sale of certain properties that Manitoba Housing is responsible for and owns, what we were discussing as well about the problems in the inner city in providing low-income housing on the market, problems we discussed about some of the ways that I would say that low-income people get taken advantage of in the market. Basically, it is difficult to make a profit on housing low-income people if you are going to have housing that meets standards. I am wondering if the minister agrees with that and sort of sees that way back when we first developed social housing in Manitoba and in Canada, it was because there was that recognition that the market cannot necessarily provide decent housing for a large segment of the population, whether they are seniors or single parents or disabled people or other families that qualify for social housing.

Mr. Reimer: I guess the history of public housing is something that is a study in itself as to why government got involved with public housing. I believe it is along the lines of trying to fill a need and a purpose in the community for giving people this opportunity to have housing.

How it has evolved and when it was first brought into the market, I believe it was along the lines of what the member is referring to. There was a void, if you want to call it, in the housing market where there was no adequate public housing or people that could not afford to get into their own homes or their own accommodations. This was their stepping stone, if you want to call it. If you get into public housing, you are into it for so many months or years. Then what it does is it gives you the stability to build your economic base, so that you can possibly move on to a bigger and better home, and to accommodations that you want as your own. So I guess that is more or less the philosophy of public housing in all areas, and this is how they got into it. When there was a lot of money around in the '70s and there was the ability to build and there was the ability to have partnerships with the federal government, there was a natural fit for the expansion of this, you know, public housing. So it worked well at that time. Times change, dictates come forth that say that you cannot do that anymore, you cannot afford to be the sole provider. You can be there as the safety net, and I think this is why public housing is changing so much where we now have a lot of elderly people in there, we have a lot of social allowance people in public housing. These are the areas that, especially with seniors, are going to grow and are going to take a new--not so much a new--but a recognition that that is the need of these people that we in public housing are going to have to try to accommodate.

Ms. Cerilli: I wonder if that is when you do get called by AIM if that is what you are going to say, because I have talked to them and seen them at different events or met with them. Perhaps more of their pressure is being applied on the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Radcliffe) that deals with the Residential Tenancies Branch, but, you know, I think from this, from what the minister has said, it seems like some of the decisions that were made in the past, and the member for Burrows (Mr. Martindale) alluded to this the other day, that some of this housing was set up to be transition housing to sort of help people through a period when they were on a low income, thinking that they would somehow be able to sock some money away and then be able to get out and on to the market. That has not occurred to a large extent.

Actually, that policy objective has been problematic when it has been tied to the rent geared to income, meaning that then those very people that are starting to be able to save some money, because they have gotten a job or a better-paying job, that does not happen because they lose the money to increase in their rent. So those people move out, and then what you end up happening is this high turnover in some of these large developments which destabilizes the community, and we get into all those other issues we were talking about earlier.

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The minister is nodding in agreement that this is a problem, and I am wondering what is going on in the department to try and deal with that, to address this, that there are two conflicting policy objectives here in the sense of the need to stabilize communities and have more success in managing this social and public housing, but then at the same time continuing on with the rent geared to income policy and considering to have the tenancies be temporary. I talk to people in public housing often who have been there a very long time, and that was never the intention you are saying. So how is the department dealing with this?

Mr. Reimer: Now I think that the conversation is a good conversation, because I think that I can agree with the member on that in the sense that you have people that because of their circumstances they are moving ahead in their economic cycle, and they are able to enjoy more money, if you want to call it, in their income, and then, because of our formula, RGI, we charge more for their rent. Especially in some of the large complexes, what you want to do is you want to build a degree of stability into that complex. If it means keeping that person or people around and they are making a little bit more money, I do not know why we are penalizing them in a sense because, if anything, they set up a role model. They set up the ability for other people to look towards these people and, not only that, these people have the opportunity to participate more in that community.

We are setting up a trial market rent here in the city with Columbus Courts, and maybe it is time we looked at expanding it to other areas of the city and maybe we look at an area like Gilbert Park or we look at an area like Lord Selkirk Park to build a sense of stability in there. Those are unique areas in Winnipeg--Gilbert Park, Selkirk Park, The Maples complex. They are communities in themselves, and maybe it is time we look at setting up maybe a pilot project in one or two of those two projects with a market-rent formula to try to encourage not only people to stay in that area but to also give them the ability to be part of that community. I have no problem in possibly looking at something like that. I think that it is a good suggestion and something that I will be pursuing with the department to see whether we can expand on that.

I will have to get solicitation, to a degree, from my federal counterparts because of the fact that we are in partnership with our feds on these two projects, but I think that sometimes you have to be the instigator and the initiator of something like this. If there is a willingness to make it happen we should be trying to pursue it, because I think that it is a valid, strong approach and a good approach that we should be taking with some of these areas, because sometimes these areas need different approaches than the norm. If the norm is going to prevent a community from expanding and correcting itself and becoming a better community, then we should change our attitude and our direction so that we can try to accommodate that.

I will be pursuing this further with the department to see why and how we can pursue it in the best way so we can get to some sort of resolve on it, because it is a good suggestion.

Ms. Cerilli: Okay. I want to go back just asking about some of the specific communities, and I want to ask a little bit about Gimli. It seems to be a region where there are some different things going on in terms of the Manitoba Housing Authority and management and maybe just to start up asking the general question of the minister. What is going on in Gimli?

Mr. Reimer: What we have done in Gimli is we have moved that office to Selkirk. We have moved two staff to Selkirk. We have kept two staff in Gimli. They are working out of one of our complexes there. One is a maintenance co-ordinator and the other is the tenant relations officer in that area, but the office in Gimli per se has been closed.

Ms. Cerilli: It seems like there were a number of procedures that changed in this area. So the minister is telling me that basically four staff are responsible for that area. Two of them are working out of Selkirk now. Two of them are working in Gimli out of one of the housing units. I guess, some of the questions that I have where some of the people that are working under them as caretakers, I understand that there have been some changes in the way that the contracts for caretakers are being issued. I am wondering why the Manitoba Housing Authority changed the contract system of agreeing to contracts for two years to going to a one-year contract with the tendering process every year.

Mr. Reimer: The feeling was that to have a live-in caretaker to get some sort of stability and sense of ownership, if you want to call it, in the complex that they are working with, it was better to offer them a two-year contract. It gives the sense of stability not only to the individual but also to the tenants of the association so that there is an identification with this person. If they are not live-in caretakers, then it is a one-year contract that we sign up with them.

Ms. Cerilli: So there seems to have been some problems and conflicts when this change occurred. Why were the caretakers that were working there not given the first chance to apply for those positions?

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Mr. Reimer: Being, as mentioned, on a yearly basis, they are done on a tender basis. They go out on open tender for the caretakers' jobs. This is not just for the Gimli area. This is a policy for all our Manitoba complexes and that. The person that is doing the job has just as much ability to resubmit his or her tender into the qualifications when it comes up, and it is done on a normal process. As I say, if they are live-in, it is for two years, and if it is not a live-in caretaker, then it is done on a yearly basis.

Ms. Cerilli: Well, I think there are all sorts of questions that I could ask about this. I do not want to get bogged down on this detail, but it seems to me that if you want stability that you do not have year-to-year contracting occurring--I do not know what the criteria are. I guess, the size of the development decides if it is going to be a live-in or not, but I understand there are also some changes in the configuration of the property areas dealing with Winnipeg Beach, Gimli and Fraserwood. Why were those areas changed where the caretakers are working?

Mr. Reimer: The member is referring to stability of turnover. I alluded to it the other day. The rate of turnover is approximately about 15 percent in our workforce, and a lot of it is to a degree not only in caretaker area but in our other areas. If the people are doing a commendable job when it comes to tendering, a lot of times these people just stay on year after year after year in their purpose. I do not know whether there is that much turnover in our normal operations of caretaking, so I think it is all the degree of interpretation as to how many, what type of differences there is for amount of turnover in the areas.

(Mr. Peter Dyck, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)

Ms. Cerilli: Was the contract broken for the Fraserwood area caretaking? Did that require the department to essentially pay double for this contract, because they then had to pay for both the new person as well as the other person, to comply with their legal requirements to pay the previous caretaker because there was violation of contract?

Mr. Reimer: I am not privy to the total mount of detail regarding Fraserwood, but I have been told that there was an overlap of double payment for approximately four months or so. We do not have the total amount of details as to what transpired, other than there was an overlap of about four months where we had to pay one caretaker while we had another one on.

Ms. Cerilli: Was Premier Filmon's special assistant's brother hired on a lower contract bid to undercut that caretaker? Is that individual still there?

Mr. Reimer: I do not believe that individual is with Manitoba Housing now.

Ms. Cerilli: Just to confirm then, the special assistant's brother was hired at a lower bid?

Mr. Reimer: I am not familiar with the detail. I would have to get more detail on that. I just do not know.

Ms. Cerilli: Okay. The caretakers that are on the contracts, are they considered to be self-employed? Are they responsible for providing their own equipment and supplies and all that kind of thing?

Mr. Reimer: They are required to supply their own hand tools, but as for equipment like lawnmowers and things like that, that is not a requirement. They are hired as an independent contractor in the truest sense and, like I mentioned, the only requirement is hand tools that they bring into the job by themselves.

Ms. Cerilli: I am just trying to see from my notes here, the name of the condominium that was in Gimli, where there has been in the past some involvement with Manitoba Housing Authority. I am not sure if this was one that was declared surplus and it has been turned into a condo. Can the minister confirm that? It is Aspen Park, that is the one.

Mr. Reimer: The complex that the member is referring to is called Aspen Park in Gimli, and there were approximately 190 units in this complex. Of those units we still retain 22 units of the complex under Manitoba Housing, and most of these units were acquired originally because of foreclosures that came about in that particular area. So we still have some units in there, but we have sold--just getting a bit of redirection on my answer here. We took over those units through Government Services which were part of the old military base. This is how we came into possession of those units and now we have slowly devolved them, so of the original units, there are still 22 that are in our portfolio.

Ms. Cerilli: So you said that you have devolved them, but you have sold them and now they are operating as condos, is that correct?

Mr. Reimer: That is correct.

Ms. Cerilli: And just to further clarify, you acquired that property because it had been with the base there?

Mr. Reimer: Yes.

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Ms. Cerilli: So the base basically sold it to Manitoba Housing, the Housing Renewal Corporation, and then you, in turn, are selling them as private units?

Mr. Reimer: I believe we took them over--the government turned them over to Government Services, and then from Government Services they went to Manitoba Housing and now they are being devolved as condominiums.

Ms. Cerilli: Well, I have just had it brought to my attention though that there is a lack of affordable housing in Gimli. Particularly, we have had it drawn to our attention that women that are working in the Women's Resource Centre there are finding that the Manitoba Housing Authority properties that do exist are not conveniently located close to shopping and other amenities, and women with small children, particularly if they recently have left violent situations, that they are basically stranded. They have no public transit out there and there has been an agreement with Manitoba Housing Authority that they would provide a certain number of units for women in that community, and there is a real problem there in terms of on the ground actually having it be a workable agreement or a workable situation.

I just want to clarify then, if this condo, if those units were actually closer to the downtown, if you want to call it that, of Gimli, if that has been adding to the problem?

Mr. Reimer: I think the member is aware that where we are talking about these units is outside of town. Aspen Park is not right in Gimli. It is a little ways out. With the 22 units available for public housing or for public use, in a sense, I could not speculate as to--we do not have the exact numbers on what is vacant and what is available but, if there is an application that these individuals fill out and specify that they would want to be in Aspen Park, we would try to accommodate them in trying to locate them there as space is available. So I can only offer those units for usage for the resource centre.

Ms. Cerilli: I am just conferring with my colleagues here. We actually have an agreement that they are going to take over at 4:30.

Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr. Chairperson, I gave notice the other day about questions that I have on Flora Place, and I am wondering if the minister either has the answers ready or if he would like me to repeat the questions and then I will get the answers one way or the other.

Mr. Reimer: It would be easier if the member asked me the questions. Then I will know what the answers can be.

Mr. Martindale: Could the minister tell me what the assessment of the condition of houses--we may be switching critics momentarily, but until we get the member for Osborne (Ms. McGifford) back I will continue. Could the minister tell us what the assessment of the condition of the housing units is by Manitoba Housing Authority for the houses on Flora Place?

Mr. Reimer: Yes, I know the member for Burrows has been quite active in correspondence and with conversations with myself regarding Flora Place and the best utilization of this piece of property. Flora Place, as he is aware, is a complex that is 55 years old. They range in condition from poor to fair in the units. There have been evaluations done on the units. There seem to be figures estimated that to bring these units into a reasonable state of repair with the new infrastructure, which is sidewalks, storm sewers, drainage sewers and everything else, that would average out to almost $55,000 per unit or almost $5.5 million.

As to where and what should be done with these units, I think the member is aware that we have initiated talks with Habitat For Humanity to see whether there was some sort of partnership that we could try to come up with in redeveloping that area and retaining the uniqueness of the area. I do not know exactly where that conversation is. The partnership that is involved with that complex is a 75-25 partnership, where that 25 percent partnership is even split in half between the city and the province. So we are actually a 12.5 percent partner in this complex. That does not mean that we still do not want to try to come to some sort of better resolve on it. But, as I mentioned, I do not know whether there has been any further commitments by Habitat to join in any type of partnership on it.

We have asked them to come up with a proposal, and they have asked for an extension on it. So there has been nothing formalized. I can make the commitment to the member that if and when things start to happen within, I would certainly bring him into the conversations of it, because of his constituency, in trying to come to some sort of resolve on it. But it really is a unique area as to what is going to happen.

The city councillor in the area has worked with possibly other directions as to what might happen in there, but we will continue to try to work with Habitat and see whether they can come up with some sort of proposition or direction for that property.

Mr. Martindale: Does Manitoba Housing Authority have any plans to repair or upgrade the existing housing?

Mr. Reimer: No, not at this time.

Mr. Martindale: What is Manitoba Housing Authority's policy as people move out of those units?

Mr. Reimer: When people move out, what we have done is we have pulled the services out of there, the electrical services. We have boarded them up and mothballed them, I guess, for lack of a better commitment. Right now there are approximately 54 of the 100 units that are vacant.

Mr. Martindale: Could the minister repeat that please? Fifty-four are vacant out of?

Mr. Reimer: Mr. Chair, 54 out of 100 are vacant.

Mr. Martindale: Are you negotiating with the other partners, the City of Winnipeg and/or CMHC, regarding any proposals that may have been received?

Mr. Reimer: There have been ongoing negotiations last year with a request for a proposal to be brought forth in October of last year. Habitat approached our department and asked for an extension on that. Since that time, there have not been any overtures by Habitat to come forth with anything concrete at this time.

Mr. Martindale: I have been talking to Habitat, so I was aware of that. Is the minister aware that the Lions Housing Centre may be interested in something at Flora Place?

Mr. Reimer: I have not been aware of that, but with that bit of news I will certainly make the department make overtures to the Lions to see whether there is a possibility that we can make some sort of connection with them. I appreciate the members giving that information, because we would certainly get the department to follow up on that.

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Mr. Martindale: You said that the city councillor for the area, who is John Prystanski, may have other plans for Flora Place. I wonder what you are referring to.

Mr. Reimer: I think that in conversations he is of the concern too that we should be doing something with that property. He is concerned about the lack of utilization, the fact that there are the boarded-up buildings in there and whether there is better utilization through it from Habitat For Humanity. The last time, in talking to the member for Point Douglas (Mr. Hickes) civically, the city councillor had indicated that he had also talked to Habitat, but I do not know whether he is pursuing something on a different venue other than what we talked about regarding Habitat. I can only relay his enthusiasm that he would like to see something happen in there too.

Mr. Martindale: I am pleased to see that all of us, including the minister and the city councillor for the area, are in agreement, and that all of us believe that it would be quite appropriate to invite Habitat to present a proposal and that if it was accepted by the three levels of government that they might build new houses or renovate existing houses.

Does the minister have any problem with having townhousing, rowhousing, side-by-sides, other kinds of housing on that street other than single, detached?

Mr. Reimer: I think that we would welcome any type of development in that area, whether it is duplexes or townhouses or anything that can sustain itself in there and generate people in the area. If it is housing and it is quality housing, I do not know whether there should be a differentiation of just sticking to strictly single-family housing in there.

I am not familiar entirely with the zoning regulations in there, whether it would have to be changed through the zoning applications from single-family to double or duplex or triplex or whatever, but that is something that maybe the councillor would be able to give us better direction as to whether there would be a conflict if we tried to change it.

Mr. Martindale: Mr. Chairperson, I believe my colleague the member for Osborne has a couple of questions, so I would like to allow her to go now.

Ms. Diane McGifford (Osborne): I wonder if the minister could tell me if the Residential Tenancies has an aboriginal officer.

Mr. Reimer: I would think that the member would have to ask that of the Consumer and Corporate Affairs department because that is not in our jurisdiction. The Residential Tenancies Association is--yes.

Ms. McGifford: Then I would like to ask the minister if he could tell me if there is any wheelchair-accessible housing in Osborne.

Mr. Reimer: I am assuming you are saying public housing under our portfolio.

Ms. McGifford: Yes.

Mr. Reimer: Just a minute, we will check on it.

As to the accessibility of our housing, we ensure, especially if it is an apartment block or something like that, that naturally it has the elevators and the ramps for access. The units themselves, we try to accommodate possibly two or three units in our complexes that are wheelchair accessible. We are very cognizant of the needs of wheelchair accessibility with the handicapped, and it just becomes part of our standard approach to provide housing.

Ms. McGifford: So then the information that we have in my constituency office that there is no accessible housing in Osborne is not true.

Mr. Reimer: Definitely, because in the member's riding we do have a fair amount of public housing and public housing buildings that have elevators, that have ramps, that have apartment units that have been modified, so we do have that in her riding.

Ms. McGifford: One of the things that I wanted to bring up is that my constituency assistant, who does a lot of work with constituents in regard to housing, tells me that she has positive relations with Housing and she enjoys working with people, but she is also telling me that she has been told increasingly that she should only contact the minister's office. I am just wondering why this might be the case and why there is this need for secrecy.

Mr. Reimer: Jeepers, I actually would want it the other way around, that they would contact the office instead of the minister. I guess maybe there are certain situations where they feel that there is better access to the minister because I am just down the road from them, in a sense, from the member's constituency, but to be truthful I do not get very many requests or calls or complaints from the field. If they are addressed to me, they come to me. They are not, you know, filtered, if you want to call it, through my office. I have always made my office open to anybody that wanted to phone or to write me a letter. They do become visible to me, in a sense, but, as to ordinary problems and concerns, I have confidence in the staff; I have an excellent staff, not only in my office or in the administrative office, but in the field office, if you want to call it. I would hope that they can respond to a lot of the concerns that the member's constituents would have, and I would encourage them to do that. If they run into problems or they feel that they are not being addressed properly, naturally there is always further recourse into other levels of the department through our senior management and possibly even right to the minister, myself. In general, the staff handle a lot of the complaints in a very conscientious manner. I have the utmost confidence in my staff. If anything, I will say on the record that I believe I have got some of the best staff in government working in my department for what they do and how they perform their jobs.

Ms. McGifford: Thank you. I certainly was not criticizing the minister's staff, and that is why I prefaced my remarks by saying that my constituency assistant, who does a lot of work for constituents, had been very clear that working with people from Housing had been a very agreeable experience. She found people generally to be co-operative. She did not mean to suggest that when she had been told that calls had to go to the minister's office, people were being disagreeable. Her understanding was that there had been some sort of instruction that certain kinds of calls were to go not directly to the minister but to the minister's office. So now am I to understand that the minister is telling me that this is not his understanding, that there has been some miscommunication? Indeed, we are in a quandary anyway.

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Mr. Reimer: I would suggest that if there are calls regarding particular problems with the housing or anything, there is an avenue of recourse through the Manitoba Housing department itself in our central office. There is nothing wrong with the individual phoning my office directly to get direction. We direct people. A lot of times they will phone to the minister's office, because it is the handiest in the phone book. We will say that, well, maybe they should be phoning this office or that office. We will do that constantly as a clearing house, but usually if someone phones Manitoba Housing, whoever answers the phone has got the capability, and they will redirect that person to the appropriate department or individual that can help them. I would encourage them to do that. I think that is a very constructive way of trying to get resolve.

Ms. McGifford: Then I understand the minister to say that if somebody phones his office, his office will reroute that person so that person understands exactly where the call should go. If somebody phones Manitoba Housing on a housing issue, the issue will be solved at that level and not be referred to the minister's office.

Mr. Reimer: Right.

Mr. Martindale: I would like to go back to Flora Place briefly, and then I have three other issues, time permitting. The current residents at Flora Place like living there very much. One of the reasons is that many of them have been on social assistance for many years during which time they mostly lived in apartments. When they moved to Flora Place--for many of them, the first time they ever lived in a single, detached house was on Flora Place. They really like the privacy and they like having a yard. They like being able to keep pets. They like the fact that it is a dead-end street and a very quiet neighbourhood. That is one of the reasons why I have continued to promote their interests and promote new affordable housing.

Another reason is that we are continuing to lose population in the inner city. In fact, during the last redistribution of seats or change in provincial constituency boundaries, Burrows constituency for the first time went south of the CPR marshalling yards to Notre Dame. The reason was that they had to enlarge the boundaries physically in order to get the same number of people, roughly, in each provincial constituency. I believe that we should make use of available land for housing. Certainly with the 54 vacant lots, there is land available for new construction or some new form of housing. If the Lions or Habitat were involved, there may be no cost to government, which makes it pretty easy for the government to approve.

However, I think the biggest obstacle is the fact that there is no storm sewer. If you are going to put in new housing, probably there needs to be a new storm sewer, which probably means rebuilding the street, putting in curbs, putting in new sidewalks, getting rid of the ditches and improving the drainage. The cost of that could be quite high, as was indicated by the minister, in the cost per unit of building new units there. You know, if that cost is excessive, then probably no government wants to take it on, especially if the City of Winnipeg ends up being responsible for all the street and sewer improvements, and that is not, or cannot be, cost-shared with other levels of government. I am wondering, just briefly, if the minister would agree with that assessment.

Mr. Reimer: Pretty well. I think that the member recognizes that the federal government has pulled out entirely of their cost-sharing of public housing, and what it does is it puts a tremendous burden on the provincial government if we want to pick up the other half of the equation. What is making it even more tenuous right now is the fact that the federal government now wants to pull entirely out of the social and the public housing sector, which even makes it more of a challenge for us here in Manitoba to recognize what the direction is going to happen.

The member is right when he alludes to the sewer and water and the storm retention ditches and everything that would have to go into Flora Place to make it into a standard that is acceptable in today's housing market, if you want to call it. The only avenue of possible optimism, if you want to call it, to get it developed to a degree is possibly through the infrastructure program.

There are possible other avenues of development through the Winnipeg Development Agreement. There are various components in the Winnipeg Development Agreement that I would have to--I am speaking with my other hat now, my Urban Affairs hat. We would have to look at the various components of sectors of involvement of availability of funding in there, and that is something that I do not think has been pursued. Maybe what I can do for the member is get a copy of the Winnipeg Development Agreement and all the various components where the funding possibly could be allocated from, and whether, because it is a $75-million program for Winnipeg, 25, 25 and 25, we each have various components of the agreement that have strategic funding placements. I am just speculating. There may be something in that agreement that can be pursued.

Mr. Martindale: I want to thank the Minister of Housing for all his information and I will pass it on to Habitat For Humanity.

There is a seniors building in Burrows constituency at 114 McGregor called Saint Josaphat Selo. I understand they have 14 vacancies. I believe they are all in bachelor suites. I am wondering what Manitoba Housing Authority is doing to try and solve this problem and to fill up bachelor suites.

Mr. Reimer: One of the things that we have initiated that I alluded to with the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) is we have set up a marketing team. One of the things that the marketing team has been charged with is trying to identify areas where there are consistent high vacancies and what we can do to try to market these units. They have had very good success. Fred Tipping Place on Osborne, and the other one was 125 Carriage Road, where this team--there are two ladies--go in and they literally go into that particular community and they market these units for occupancy. At Fred Tipping Place, they brought down the vacancy in a very short period of I think it was 2 months, from 37 units down to 4 units. This possibly should be one that we target for this marketing team to go into. Maybe what I will do is I will refer it to the staff to take note of that and, as this team is moving through the city, we can maybe target that area and see whether we can try to get more people into that unit.

Mr. Martindale: I thank the minister for that answer and I guess I will give notice for the next question. It is my understanding that an exception has been made to the previous policy of restricting seniors buildings to people 55 years and older and, I guess, in an effort to fill up some of these buildings, people under 55 are being admitted.

The result is that I have had a number of complaints, mainly from two different buildings. One is the seniors high rise at Lord Selkirk development in Point Douglas constituency and the other is Monash Manor in Kildonan constituency, and the specific complaints have to do with partying by tenants and/or their friends or relatives. I know of one person that moved out of Monash Manor because of this.

I am wondering if the minister believes that there is a problem with this policy of admitting people under the age of 55, if you or Manitoba Housing Authority have had complaints or difficulties and if you attribute it to this new policy?

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Dyck): The hour is now 5 p.m., and I am interrupting the proceedings of the committee for private members' hour. The committee will reconvene at 8 p.m. this evening.