Nunavik gets $5 million worth of new social housing

QUEBEC CITY — Four communities in Nunavik will see $5 million worth of new social housing units built this summer.

Through cost-cutting measures and a new design, builders are actually managing to double the number of houses that would usually built for that amount of money.

The federal and provincial governments are splitting the $10 million cost of building and maintaining 42 new low-cost housing units.

Half will go towards their construction, while the other portion will be used to pay for taxes, heating, electricity and maintenance.

Sixteen of two-bedroom units are slated for Salluit, 15 for Kuujjuaq and six each for Tasiujaq and Aupaluk. These will be completely self-contained, prefabricated units, but, unlike most social housing in Nunavik, the new “cottage-like” units will be covered in vinyl siding, instead of more costly wood and steel.

Quebec’s housing bureau, the Société d’habitation du Québec, will supervise the construction, but once work is completed, the SHQ will hand over the keys to the Kativik Housing Bureau.

The Kativik Housing Bureau (KHB), due to officially start up on January 1, 2000, will oversee around 1700 social housing units in Nunavik, a housing stock valued at approximately $263 million.

Its new seven-person board will include two Kativik Regional Government councilors, two members chosen by Quebec’s minister of municipal affairs, and two elected members representing all the users of social housing units.

The KRG has already selected councilors Adamie Ainalik, Maggie Emudluk and Siasie Smiler to sit on the board. The two members at large will be elected from the communities of Kangiqsujuaq and Salluit.

KHB general manager Watson Fournier said that appointees and elected board members should be in place by the end of the summer.

The new board will be responsible for administering and managing a $22 million budget and 20 employees, most of whom will be based in Kuujjuaq. It will also have to deal with the challenge of collecting more than $3 million in rent arrears and adopting an effective strategy to reduce unpaid rent in Nunavik.

But no increases in rent scales for social housing units are anticipated before July, 2001.

Rent for social housing ranges from $189 for an older two-bedroom dwelling to $374 for a more recently-built six-bedroom house.

The SHQ wants to increase rents so that they equal 25 per cent of the income earned by the two highest wage earners in each household.

A KRG document submitted to Quebec argued that “any actions which try to force social housing tenants to contribute more to their rent under the guise of applying a national standard is unfair” because Nunavik households are larger than average, pay more for their food, and earn less.

The issue of rent increases is still under review.