‘Paddling the same boat’: Hamlets prepare for housing influx

Many challenges remain for hamlets looking to benefit from the territory’s latest home ownership initiative, but Nunavut Association of Municipalities’ executive director Marla Limousin says communities are preparing to face them.

“It’s an ambitious project,” she said in an interview with Nunatsiaq News. “[But] we’re all paddling the same boat right now … Things are moving quickly but co-ordinately.”

In August, Nunavut Housing Corp. announced the Nunavut Homeownership Assistance Program, which gives Nunavummiut financial assistance to buy a package of building materials that they’ll use to build their own home. The first round of applications closes Oct. 18.

NHAP is inspired by the old Homeownership Assistance Program.

Offered by the Northwest Territories government throughout the 1980s, HAP gave applicants housing designs and materials at no cost to build a home by themselves. It lasted for about a decade and was widely considered a success for its cost-effectiveness and for taking pressure off social housing.

Limousin said the Nunavut Association of Municipalities hired consultants in 2022 on behalf of a dozen hamlets to create a plan for subdivision development, including ways to zone land.

That preparation helped the group meet funding requirements for the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund. With leftover cash, hamlets could buy “anything related to housing,” like trucks for water or sewage service, she said.

Plenty of councils also manage a land development fund, which works by leasing prepared land to generate money for another subdivision.

“Some communities are on the ball,” Limousin said in an interview. “They’ve got like a three-, four-year supply. Others don’t, because they haven’t seen any development.”

There’s still work to be done — such as maintaining roads, handling solid waste, managing lots — and not every community is ready.

Among the best-prepared, according to Limousin, are Kimmirut and Sanirajak. Among the least-prepared: Iqaluit and Kugluktuk.

Jimmy Main, vice-president of operations for Nunavut Housing Corp., said he recognizes some communities struggle with “obstacles that are pretty significant.”

That’s why NHAP has a two-step approval process. Based on the point system, the housing corporation accepts an applicant, who must then lease a plot.

“We may see the scenario where someone will not be able to get one,” he said in an interview. “That’ll be unfortunate, but then we’d move to the next on the list that may be in a municipality where they can obtain land.”

This system could affect how the corporation allocates program resources.

Although NHAP houses will be cheaper to build than public housing, the housing corporation is still looking for ways to save money in order to provide more homes. These cost-cutting measures include providing “modest” house designs and requiring clients to take out a mortgage.

It also includes finding “economies of scale,” Main said, which could put smaller communities at a disadvantage.

“Certainly, we’re not giving any emphasis on bigger communities as opposed to small ones, but will likely group the approvals to a couple communities,” he said.

He said that if two program hopefuls send in equal applications, the tie-breaker might come down to the candidate that lives in the most cost-effective community — the one that has subcontractors and other successful clients.

However, the housing corporation has an “ace” in its pocket, Main said, which might level the field. With Nunavut 3000, a “support network” will already be in most communities building public housing.

Main said the corporation plans to approach NCC Development Ltd. — the company partnered with the government for Nunavut 3000 — to help amateur builders.

“We do have limited dollars to dedicate to this,” he said. “So I just want to ask people to bear with us, and we’re doing what we can at this point.”