150 new housing units planned for 8 Nunavut communities

Work starts this fall; Nunavut Housing Corp., NCC Development Ltd. contracts part of Nunavut 3000 strategy

Eight Nunavut communities will see construction begin on 150 new public housing units in the fall, as part of the Nunavut 3000 strategy. (File photo)

By Nunatsiaq News

Construction will begin this fall on 150 new public housing units across eight Nunavut communities, the Government of Nunavut announced last week.

Nunavut Housing Corp. and NCC Development Ltd. have signed design-build contracts for the housing units as part of the Nunavut 3000 Strategy, also known as Igluliuqatigiingniq.

The strategy aims to build 3,000 new housing units in the territory by 2030.

In Iqaluit, 18 public housing units have been approved, with the hamlets of Arviat, Rankin Inlet, Baker Lake, Arctic Bay, Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak each receiving 20. An additional 12 units will be built in Cambridge Bay.

The total contract value including design and site costs of the 150 units is approximately $105.3 million.

“The contract value reflects a significant reduction in construction costs relative to bids from the past two years, a signal that COVID-relative price escalations are beginning to soften,” said Nunavut Housing Corp. CEO and president Eiryn Devereaux in a statement.

The contracts also include an Inuit labour target of 30 per cent for construction of the housing units.

“Our organization is committed to mobilizing Inuit-owned and northern resources to build homes by and for Nunavummiut,” said NCC Development CEO and president Clarence Synard in a statement.

“The Nunavut 3000 Strategy includes meaningful and effective training programs that will ensure we lead in the development of skills for Inuit who are interested in a career in the trades.”

 

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(16) Comments:

  1. Posted by Left out on

    Of course Iqaluit is the number priority. What about Sanikiluaq? People, family who are crowding in one house. Not forgetting few homeless people. No hope in housing for Sanikiluaq. Family comes first. Single men living in three bedroom houses. Couples living in different homes but won’t move into each other’s homes. Criminals have homes but spend most of their time in prison but won’t get butt out. Sanikiluaq is always on the bottom list for everything, always left out.

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  2. Posted by 150 Units per year means 2043…….. on

    So if my math is correct that would mean 3000 units by 2043 not 2030…. Also I wonder how many communities actually have space for these 3000 units.

    I wonder if they will meet their 30% Inuit labour, and if they dont what is the penalty to NCC? Would be nice if Nunatsiaq News would ask those questions….

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  3. Posted by Awesome on

    Absolutely amazing. It’s only costing $700k per unit ?

    The business arm of the Inuit orgs doing an amazing job further hiking the housing market so that the average inuk can’t afford to buy a house.

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    • Posted by Putting this out there on

      And that 700K is not even a single house on a lot, but will be for 1 unit in a five-plex, which no one likes and does not leave proper space for sheds and equipment.

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    • Posted by art thompson on

      Buy a house…..lol. this is all public housing.

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      • Posted by true dat! on

        Exactly! How is NU going to grow an economy when there is little to no inventory of new houses for sale? It seems every single house that is being built is public housing at a price tag of over $700K. That is insane!

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  4. Posted by Here we go on

    We still trust NHC to do anything! Total disaster!

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  5. Posted by Joanasie on

    It would be nice if there was an incentive or some sort of a program so that Inuit had the opportunity to build their own house. If there are more private ownership, then that’s less strain on public housing. I remember the “hab housing” program in the 90s. Why don’t they using the money for something like that?

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    • Posted by Out of the Way on

      It would be nice if the GN, NHC, and the rest just got out of the way. Let people mark off a piece of unoccupied land and claim it.
      Put up a tent and live in the tent until you build a shack on the land. Live in the shack until you can build a cabin on the land. Live in the cabin until you can build a house on the land. No loan. No grant. No mortgage. Live in what you can afford. Just like what great grandpa did.

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  6. Posted by NHC is hoarding units on

    The NHC is hoarding houses, there are so many empty units all over the territory that the NHC owns, they are supposed to be filled by GN employees for certain jobs that have never been filled and when an Inuk gets a indeterminate position in the GN it is next to impossible to get a unit, some waiting 5 years or more, while these units sit empty. The people making the decisions on who gets GN housing are people who have never experienced living in over crowded housing and most likely these people making the decision on who gets to live in the GN housing are living in undercrowded homes and have never been homeless themselves. I don’t see any Inuit on the committee. It is absolutely disgusting to hear, well the inuit don’t know how to care for their homes…THEY ARE OVERCROWDED!!! their homes are not built to sustain 10 to 15 people living in a 2 bedroom house.

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  7. Posted by Not enough info on

    So is this actually part of Nunavut 3,000 or just the homes that didn’t get built during covid that were originally scheduled pre Nunavut 3,000 and now we’re just including them in Nunavut 3,000 to make it actually look like its a go?

    Sure looks like it’s just the multiple years of homes that didn’t get built / postponed due to rising costs from covid which would have resulted in a roll over of that past money with a few Nunavut 3,000 mixed in.

    Right now Nunavut 3,000 looks like nothing more than a few talking heads touting big things to make a spectacal. Skilled labour is in demand across Canada right now. You don’t have to go to Nunavut to earn a buck which means you’re going to have some significant labour costs to entice people into coming up. It will be interesting to see if NCC can actually ramp up and if there’s actually enough budget money to cover the rising labour and material costs.

    Since it’s public money I’d like to see a full fledged plan on how they’re going to attract and retain labour, what the wages will be based on credentials / experience, what subcontractors they’re using in each community and how much money is going to each.

    There needs to be transparency given this entier deal was essentially sole sourced to NCC. Seems like a lot of money and I haven’t seen a lot of public tenders out from NCC for things like worker accommodation in each community. Does NCC just get to pick and choose? Buddy buddy style?

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  8. Posted by Kugmiut on

    70 yr old matchbox houses for sale in kugluktuk for a measly $700,000.00 2 bedrooms and a bathroom -800sqft. Cheap for 700 thousand dollars

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  9. Posted by jack all on

    The funny thing about this is that Nunavut was already building this many houses in previous years, the 3000 “new houses” isn’t in addition to those being regularly built. There were this many houses built in 2017,2018,2019. This is nothing to write home about. Nunavut 3000 is a farce to try and look good. If they said 3000 homes ABOVE the 150 each year we are already building then maybe something worth reading about. This is a farce of the current Government, and means absolutely nothing.
    Again this is SOCIAL Housing, it does nothing for the economy, it does nothing for the independence of the territory. The rest of the country is build on private home ownership, but not us we like to slum it and keep the population down. Who is going to maintain all these 3000 units? Nunavut Housing doesn’t have the budgets for this long term. What a laugh.

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  10. Posted by Little Sammy Chung on

    Good to see “Funky Town” is getting a few. ?

  11. Posted by Hunter on

    They need to be buioding 430 new units a year to achieve 3000 units by 2030 not just 150. Ata build rate of 150 per year, 3000 units wont be built until 2043, 20 years from now. Next year there will be 6 years and 2850 units to build that will mean they will have to build 475 units a year to achieve their goal of 3000 units by 2030.

    The math just does not add up Community capacity is not there either in the smaller communities, they don’t have the space they need to house all the contractors and subcontractors that will be building these units.

    This is going to be a logistical nightmare just like the MAP houses of 2006-2008

  12. Posted by Umingmak on

    Pangnirtung has new housing builds cancelled two years ago, and they get left out of this? Ridiculous.

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