Nunavik housing bureau touts benefits of new home ownership program

Most Nunavimmiut live in social housing units like this one under renovation in Puvirnituq. But over the next five years, the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau hopes to find 150 families eager to own their own homes and move out of social housing or staff housing units. (FILE PHOTO)

If you work and live in Nunavik and want to get out of staff or social housing, here’s your chance.

The Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau is promoting a new home ownership program that will pay up to 75 per cent of the construction costs of a new house — as much $356,250 — and up to 90 per cent of the construction cost if the builder is a non-profit group or co-operative association.

However, the program, finally launched last week (more than a year after Quebec premier Jean Charest first announced it as part of Plan Nord), comes too late for home builders to start up in 2012.

“We had hoped it would be out sooner,” said KMHB manager Watson Fournier. “Unless people are extremely well prepared, they won’t be able to build, but they’ll be able to apply, to get their planning done, and prepare their pads.”

In any event, it’s good to let a building pad settle over the winter, Fournier added.

As well, the delay will allow people to plan for everything that is involved in building a home because “it’s more complicated than just going to get your groceries,” he said.

You have to get your documents from the local landholding corporation, municipality and bank as well as your building plans in order. And, as part of the new program, all prospective homeowners must take a course about the process before the KMHB will release the construction grant money.

“It is public funds, so we want to give it to a project that has a very good chance of succeeding,” Fournier said.

To date, only a couple of the estimated 60 or so homeowners who built their own homes in Nunavik under an earlier home ownership program have defaulted on their loans, he said.

The key to success, Fournier said, is to build a small home.

“People should think small — at $400 per square foot, every foot costs a lot of money. Think smaller, “ he said. “The ones who are successful, you see that they have a simple modest house.”

But here’s the clincher: why build a home in Nunavik at all?

Even Fournier says you can’t look at home ownership in Nunavik as a short-term financial investment. That’s because it can be hard to sell your home when you want to, if you need to.

But while Fourier says there’s no private market for housing yet in Nunavik (where nearly everyone lives in either staff or social housing), there are other reasons to build your own home: “you get out of social housing, you have what you want, you’re not under our rules.”

You can also get what you want.

At a KMHB housing symposium, held this past May in Kuujjuaq to consult Nunavimmiut on what kind of design improvements they’d like to see in social housing units, participants said they’d like to see bigger porches and doors, a larger kitchen and living room, a garage, better views and higher quality interior finishes.

But those are what you, as a homeowner, can incorporate into your home. And, after 15 years, you’ll have “earned” your government grant, Fournier said.

“With home ownership, at the end of 15 years, the building is yours, and the government paid the lion’s share of that,” he said.

But to afford building a home in Nunavik, you should think about whether you are willing and able to pay at least $1,000 more a month than you pay now.

The largest social housing unit in Nunavik carries a monthly rent of only $675, and, even with a grant, a mortgage can mean payments that are much higher than that.

Home ownership in Nunavik will be easier for a household in which there are two wage earners who earn good salaries — “we’re just looking for the top five per cent,” Fournier said.

The plan is to attract 150 new homeowners over the next five years, a figure that Fournier admits may be hard to reach — but “it’s a goal, it’s a high goal for us to reach.”

The KMHB also hopes to see 50 co-op units built in Nunavik over the next five years.

The co-op home ownership program is already getting a good reaction, Fournier said.

This will subsidize co-op groups to build apartments or other complexes of units and then rent these out to members.

The co-op form of home ownership is a good option for those who can’t afford the full price of building a home, but who can pay more to get to have their own place, Fournier said — “an intermediate step” between social housing and private home ownership.

The new home ownership program will also pay from $10,000 to $50,000 for renovations to existing homes, grants which are recoverable over five years.

For more information on the home ownership and renovation program, Fournier suggests contacting the KMHB in Kuujjuaq for more information.