Nunavik housing deal once again put on hold

The federal and Quebec provincial governments can’t agree on how much each should spend on new social housing for Nunavik. Meanwhile, the absence of new social housing construction means many people in Kuujjuaq spent the summer in tents while their aging units were fixed. (FILE PHOTO)

Nunavik needs more social housing, about 750 units — and that’s what politicians have repeatedly promised to deliver.

But a commitment to build more social housing in Nunavik won’t be coming this month, as many expected.

Nunatsiaq News has learned that the much-touted Nunavik Housing Forum, first announced last March for June 25, and then postponed until Sept. 10, has now been cancelled.

The cancellation — which comes with no hint of a new date — results from a dispute over money between Quebec’s housing bureau and the federal government, which sources say may take several weeks to resolve.

A spokesperson for Quebec’s native affairs department said officials are working on the file, but could not offer any date for the rescheduling of the forum.

Andy Moorhouse, president of the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau, said he remains hopeful that a new date for the forum will take chosen soon.

“But only time will tell. We have made our position clear in regards to the housing crisis is the region and we can only repeat what we have said to all government officials in regards to the housing need.”

The delay in the meeting flies in the face of a recent promise from governments to solve Nunavik’s housing crisis:

“Quebec and Canada intend to actively work together in the upcoming months, among other things, to announce the holding of the Housing Forum this May in Nunavik, in order to substantially improve the housing situation by 2015,” said a March 6 news release signed by Makivik Corp., the Kativik Regional Government and the federal and provincial governments.

Nunavik’s current social housing construction agreement expires next March 31.

The new deal, which would involve the federal and provincial governments as well as Makivik Corp., should see Nunavik get at least $225 million over five years, enough for about 750 new social housing units, the number that which the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau says Nunavik needs.

The lack of any new social housing construction this summer in Kuujjuaq meant tenants of the 21 four-bedroom duplexes under renovation had to spend their summer in tents because there were no empty units they could temporarily occupy.

The KMHB supplied the tents, which the tenants will be able to keep when they move back home, and naptha for the camp stoves, although the tents come equipped with a small wood stove.

Some of the tent-dwellers may not be able to move back to their renovated homes until Dec. 15.

“It’s not ideal but we don’t have any other solution,” said Watson Fournier, manager of the KMHB.

In the South, renovations would start earlier in the year, and it would be possible to find inexpensive, short-term lodging for tenants in hotels: “here, there’s no choice [but to resort to tents],” Fournier said.

The KMHB couldn’t afford to buy a construction camp because such a large investment would eat up the bureau’s renovation budget, he said.

The KMHB is carrying out $51 million worth of renovations to its stock of 2,190 social housing units, which includes renovations to units in Kuujjuaq, Kuujjuaraapik and Umiujaq in 2009.