An Inuit-run housing program?

Now that Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Government of Nunavut have taken on the job of putting together a proposal for the reinstatement of a social housing construction program for Nunavut, it may be a good time to take a serious look at an idea whose time may have come: an Inuit-run social housing program for Nunavut.

Unlike First Nations people in Canada, especially those who live on reserves, Inuit are effectively treated just like non-aboriginal people in the application of federal government housing policies.

As everyone knows, the social housing money that’s given to the Nunavut Housing Corporation every year through the federal Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to operate and maintain Nunavut’s existing social housing stock is public government money, not Inuit-specific. Because of that, social housing units are supposed to be allocated on the basis of need, not ethnicity.

But about 98 per cent of all tenants living in Nunavut’s 3,900 social housing units are Inuit. It’s Inuit families, for the most part, who suffer the greatest damage as Nunavut’s housing crisis worsens. That includes appalling rates of infectious respiratory disease, family violence, suicide, and depression, all of which are related to Nunavut’s overcrowded housing conditions.

And it’s Inuit who are systematically denied what First Nations people have come to regard as a birthright – subsidized affordable housing. If a social housing program is reinstated for Nunavut on the basis that the federal government has a fiduciary responsibility to fund housing for Inuit, then it only makes sense that it should be built and managed by Inuit, for Inuit.

At a recent press conference with DIAND Minister Andy Mitchell, Nunavut MP Nancy Karetak-Lindell said territorial leaders should start “thinking outside the box.” Simply put, this means thinking thoughts that have never been thought before.

For Nunavut, the idea of an Inuit-run housing program is such an idea.

But it’s potentially controversial. And if it’s adopted, officials will want to move carefully. In some communities, especially Iqaluit, there are still substantial numbers of low-income non-Inuit, most of them long-term residents, who live in social housing and can’t afford to live anywhere else. Many of them fall into the category of “working poor.” This means that some form of public housing accessible to non-Inuit will have to be maintained by the territorial government.

But Nunavut’s Inuit organizations and development corporations now have the capacity and the desire to build and manage new housing for Inuit in Nunavut. And NTI has decided to play a major role on Inuit housing issues.

Federal and territorial leaders should, therefore, give serious consideration to an Inuit-run, Inuit-specific housing program for Nunavut within their deliberations on new housing over the next weeks and months.

Who knows? Perhaps an Inuit-run body might have better luck when dealing with painful issues like tenant arrears and unit allocations. JB