Nunavut court orders housing association to put Rankin woman back on list
“It is a cliché that desperate deeds are done by desperate people”
In the Nunavut community go Rankin Inlet, population 2,600, social housing is in short supply and about 100 people are on the waiting list for new housing. (FILE PHOTO)
A Rankin Inlet woman, a single mother with two children who moved to Churchill, Manitoba in an attempt to get a roof over her head, should be put back on the Rankin Inlet Housing Association’s waiting list, Nunavut Justice Andrew Mahar said in a judgment issued Aug. 10.
And her name should be restored to the spot where she was listed prior to her brief stay in Churchill in 2013, Mahar ruled.
“The list of candidates for social housing is not made up of identical individuals with identical concerns,” he said in his judgment.
“Many applicants will have supportive family and friends and will have no trouble making temporary arrangements while they wait for housing. The only people who will take the extreme step of moving to a strange community for no reason other than the availability of housing are those people who have no other choice.
“It would be tragically ironic if the very people most in need of social housing were to lose their access to it because of the dramatic steps they may take to find a place to live while they languish on a waiting list.”
In the Nunavut community go Rankin Inlet, population 2,600, social housing is in short supply and about 100 people are on the waiting list for new housing.
Donna Tatty’s position on the waiting list was number 16 when she went to Churchill to find housing in 2013.
“It is a cliché that desperate deeds are done by desperate people. I already accepted as a fact that the applicant had no reason to move to Churchill beyond the need for housing. She was willing to travel alone, with two children under school age, to a community where she had no one to help her as a result of compelling need. People, especially people in the circumstances of the applicant, want to stay in their home communities unless there is a good reason to leave.”
“This is why I find that it was unreasonable for the RIHA to define the applicant as a non-resident on the basis of her temporary relocation to Churchill. It would have been better if she had clearly indicated that her move was only while she waited for housing in Rankin Inlet, but clearly a temporary move is what it was.”
While attending a parenting workshop in Churchill, Tatty learned of the easy availability of public housing there. She made an application, received housing, and relocated with her children to Churchill on May 10, 2013.
Before the move, in April 2013, Tatty told the housing association about her decision to relocate.
“On three occasions she was informed that if she followed through on this, she would be removed from the waiting list and required to begin her residency from the beginning should she decide to return. On these occasions, she gave no indication that the contemplated move was anything other than permanent.”
But Mahar said there appeared to have been an unfortunate breakdown in communication between Tatty and the housing association.
“The applicant had no other reason for moving to Churchill other than the lack of available housing in Rankin Inlet. She had no friends or extended family there, no job or educational program to go to, and no supports available other than those normally provided by social services and welfare,” he said.
Mahar said that neither Tatty nor the housing authority explored the possibility of a temporary relocation as part of their discussions.
“She did not propose this solution, but neither was it offered to her. I also accept as a fact that the applicant would at all times have wanted to return to Rankin Inlet if housing became available to her.” Mahar said.
On July 8, 2013, the applicant returned to Rankin Inlet, after spending less than two months in Churchill.
“What I take from her return is that the applicant’s connection to Churchill was tenuous at best and that, in spite of obtaining housing in Churchill, her life there, alone with two small children, was predictably not easy, and that her real home has always been and continues to be Rankin Inlet,” Mahar said.
Since her return to Rankin Inlet, Tatty “has failed to secure reasonable accommodation and has essentially been couch-surfing, even spending some time at the women’s shelter,” Mahar said.
And she was taken off the list and told she hadn’t lived long enough in Rankin Inlet — 12 months — to be put on the list.
While the housing authority can remove applicants from the housing list for social housing in Rankin Inlet because they no longer live in Rankin Inlet, Mahar questioned “the reasonableness of the RIHA’s decision to define Ms. Tatty as a non-resident and the reasonableness of the consequences that flowed from this decision.”
And he ordered Tatty be placed back on the housing list “in a position consistent with her original application.”
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