Former Nunatsiaq News reporter David Venn received two first-place prizes at the Canadian Community Newspaper Awards for his work on the 8,000-word, four-part Our Home series that looked at possible answers to Nunavut’s housing crisis.
‘Modernized’ Nunavut Homeownership Assistance Program began here
If success has 1,000 fathers, a special Nunatsiaq News section is one of the sires of the new NHAP
A year ago, no one was talking about the Homeownership Assistance Program until a Nunatsiaq News reporter pulled it from the dustbin of history, brushed off the cobwebs and gave everyone a fresh look at it.
Now, the Nunavut Homeownership Assistance Program is going to give Nunavummiut the chance to own their own house with $250,000 in government funding along with some do-it-yourself labour.
The Government of Nunavut calls it a “modernized” version of the HAP program that existed from 1983 to 1992.
That program gave people a shipment of free building materials from the Northwest Territories government and blueprints plucked from a catalogue. Using their own “sweat equity,” people would build the homes themselves.
Inuit know the northern conditions better than southern construction companies. Inuit can build. Give them the equipment and let them build homes themselves, was the thinking.
Nunatsiaq News put the idea back on Nunavut’s radar in 2023 with the publication of Our Home, an 8,000-word, four-part series researched and written by David Venn, then a Nunatsiaq reporter. That series lives in the Housing section under the Features button on our website.
A chance conversation with former MP Jack Anawak in 2022 about the old HAP program piqued Venn’s curiosity. It worked 40 years ago. Could it work now?
Venn spent the next year thumbing through old HAP documents. He waited out COVID-19 travel lockdowns until the time came when he could go to Naujaat and Rankin Inlet to see some of the original homes built under HAP and check out how well they had held up.
He said then that he saw the series as an example of solutions-based journalism — reporting that not only shines a light on a social problem like housing, but also constructively proposes a way to make it better.
A year after Our Home was published, the Government of Nunavut started talking about reviving HAP.
We don’t know exactly how influential that series was in reigniting the GN’s interest. But we’re confident that Our Home got noticed among GN and Nunavut Housing Corp. staff.
By April 2024, when the Nunavut Housing Corp. announced the “modernized” NHAP, it was using the term “HAP 2.0” to describe it.
Very often, journalism requires a trip through society’s doom and gloom. Crime. Tax hikes. COVID-19 lockdowns. Diesel fuel in the water supply.
But once in a while, there’s a chance to delve into a topic and explore how to make an idea work for the betterment of the community.
Nunatsiaq’s Our Home series earned recognition at regional and national newspaper awards, including a National Newspaper Award nomination, a Quebec Community Newspapers Association feature-writing award, and the first-ever Egbert Gaye Dare to Make a Difference Award, named after a Montreal advocate known for giving his community a voice, his advocacy and philanthropy.
If this article sounds like bragging, it is. It’s easy for the public to knock their local media. It’s not unique to the North. It happens everywhere. We get it. It comes with the territory.
But selfishly, when there’s a clear-cut case that demonstrates how the power of the press (to use an antiquated expression) can drive change, it’s worth reminding readers.
The modernization of this program is not a sudden reaction to recent media coverage but rather the result of years of advocacy and discussions within our government. HAP has been a longstanding topic, one that has been brought up repeatedly in the Legislative Assembly by nearly every MLA over the past two decades (if you checked the Blues)
While I appreciate the role of the media in shedding light on important issues, I believe many have championed this cause long before any recent articles were published. The notion that action is being taken solely because of your coverage oversimplifies the efforts of many and feeds into a narrative that seems to align more with a “white savior” complex than with the reality on the ground.
This new HAP program has been in the works for a long time, driven by the needs and voices of our communities, and not by any singular media intervention. I encourage Nunatsiaq News to consider this context and to recognize that while media coverage can certainly play a role in highlighting issues, it is by no means the catalyst for every action taken.
Looking (way) back, I’d like to remind folks that the Kate Gordon Wray, Minister of Housing in the 13th Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly determinedly pioneered and designed the original HAP program, which was a sequel to the previous SHAG (sp?) program in the NWT which was a homeowner program for folks living below the treeline who could use logs for building materials. Gordon developed the HAP program , which was eagerly subscribed to in those years, for people living beyond the treeline in the Eastern Arctic. It was very cost effective because homeowners raised contributed their own “sweat equity” and found their own funds to hire tradespeople to put the houses up. The territorial government provided a choice of blueprints you could add to, a grant and delivered the materials to the beach in each community. The late David McPherson was the official in the NWT Housing Corporation who led this very successful initiative. And Patterk Netser, who built a beautiful HAP home for himself in Coral Harbour, where he lives to this day, along with many other HAP homeowners all across the north, was the first Nunavut Housing Minister to champion HAP 2.0 in Nunavut. This is a great program, though not for everyone, because it’s builds pride and self-reliance in housing in Nunavut.
Uhhh what the actual heck. Corey, just stop. Like the foist comment said in way nicer terms, you and your paper had nothing to do with the “modernization” of this program. And for you do so blatantly pound your chest as if it is because of you or your paper is ridiculous and clout searching. I’m not sure I can ever read any of your stories and trust it anymore
This will end up as a gift to the very richest, best politically connected Inuit in Nunavut, and to their children.
The rest of us will continue to stay on the public housing waitlists for years.
If this is like previous programs then there is an income limit to those who can apply.
Political people are not making decisions on the program, the program is fair and based on merit.
This Program for inuit, should have been part of the Land Claims Agreement, to work on affordable housing, either public or private homeownership. As the cost of living goes up, so does everything else. The ticket prices to leave Nunavut, is ridiculous expensive, to the point where some cannot afford to travel for a holiday. Also for job, more companies claim to want inuit employees, we’ll train them how the job is to be done, and when worked there over a long period of time, give raises, to keep good inuit employees.
So hard to get a house here you have to be special to get a house here been in government house but when you don’t work anymore you get kicked out.Been trying to get a house so long now some time’s moving around is hard place to place.
Despite the first two comments, the timing of these events make it appear that the series was a catalyst to spur some action on the part of a government not known for much action.
So you don’t want to stay on PH wait list. Do something about it, get a job, keep your job, save some money, apply for programs, get your kids educated, stop blaming the system for holding you back.
Nunavut housing-Time to make high rises. One building = 100 units or more …the limits endless. Get on with the millenium. Its not 1960 anymore.
Look at you go!!! Now do universal basic income and follow that up with world peace!