Nunavik rents will stay put for most people

KUUJJUAQ — All Nunavimmiut who live in social housing units willl see no rent increases this year.

But even better, it looks as if all welfare recipients, low-income wage earners and old age pensioners will see no increases in the future, either.

The federal and Quebec governments didn’t want to fork over more money to construct new social housing in the region unless there were some changes to the rent structure.

But these changes, when they do come, will probably affect only high-income families living in social housing Nunavik..

Nunavik is the only region in Canada where social housing rents aren’t already calculated according to household income.

This week in Kuujjuaq André Marcil, the president of Quebec’s housing bureau, the Société d’habitation du Québec, heard persuasive evidence that Nunavimmiut on limited incomes are already hard-pressed for cash — because they earn less and must pay more for the basics of life.

Gérard Duhaime, a researcher at Université Laval, and a member of the Nunavik Commission, told Marcil and Quebec’s municipal affairs minister, Louise Harel, about the results of a cost-of-living study that compares prices in Nunavik with those in the rest of Quebec.

This independent study, funded by the Kativik Regional Government, the Makivik Corporation, DIAND and the SHQ, was supposed to shed light on the economic situation facing Nunavimmiut.

The study showed that Nunavik residents pay 69 per cent more for food than people in the rest of Quebec. For example, a selection of personal care items costing $4.29 in southern Quebec totals $7.70 in Nunavik.

Gas costs more, too, and home products are nearly twice as expensive.

“To face these higher costs, people get less money. If you increase the cost of rent, you will cause more constraints,” Duhaime told the visiting officials from Quebec City.

While social housing rents are around a third less in Nunavik than elsewhere in Quebec, the study shows that Nunavik’s per capita income is half that people living in the rest of Quebec.

“Low cost housing has played an important role in the community because it gives people more money to face higher costs,” Duhaime said.

The results came as no surprise to SHQ’s Marcil.

Yet some increase for those high-end earners who still live in cheap social housing is in store, although even this indexed rent scale could be designed to account for the higher cost of living in Nunavik.

“But I think it that it’s important that families pay rent that reflects their earnings,” Marcil said.