Plan to build 3,000 new housing units by 2030 unveiled for Nunavut
GN, Nunavut Housing Corp. and NCC Development Ltd. team up on ambitious project
Premier P.J. Akeeagok, third left from centre, and Finance Minister Lorne Kusugak, centre wearing a checkered shirt, stand alongside members of Nunavut Housing Corp., NCC Development Ltd. and students from Nunavut Arctic College in Rankin Inlet in 2022. (Photo by David Lochead)
The Government of Nunavut and the Nunavut Housing Corp. are teaming up with NCC Development Ltd. to build 3,000 new housing units by 2030.
“Nunavummiut deserve homes, securing a healthy, secure, independent and dignified lifestyle,” said Lorne Kusugak, the government’s minister responsible for the Nunavut Housing Corp.
The announcement was made at Nunavut Arctic College’s Sanatuliqsarvik Trades Training Centre in Rankin Inlet, with trades students packing into a room alongside Premier P.J. Akeeagok and other officials.
Under the Nunavut 3000 Strategy — also called Igluliuqatigiingniq, which means building homes together — NCC signed a 10-year partnership agreement with the housing corporation to build 2,000 of the 3,000 units.
More than 3,000 housing units are needed in the territory to meet demand, according to a 2020 report by Nunavut Housing Corp.
Overcrowding in existing homes is a significant issue in Nunavut. Thirty-five per cent of homes do not have enough bedrooms for their occupants, compared to five per cent nationally, according to a 2020 report by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
“I think it’s an ambitious target and one we’re lined up to aggressively meet,” said housing corporation chief executive officer Eiryn Devereaux, of the partnership.
Of the 3,000 units to be built, 300 are planned to be transitional or temporary housing, 1,400 will be public housing, 900 are affordable housing and 400 are market-value.
However, the 2030 housing targets can change depending on infrastructure being ready for more builds as well as private sector investments, the housing corporation noted.
The cost to build 3,000 units will be approximately $2.6 billion, Devereaux said. The private sector is expected to cover $900 million with the rest of the funding coming from the public sector and Inuit organizations, he said.
“The challenge is quite daunting … but [we] travel to the communities and see the struggles that people have — there’s our incentive,” said NCC chief executive officer Clarence Synard, of the ambitious housing targets.
Creating affordable housing co-investment programs will be one of the strategies to attract the private sector, Devereuax said. That means public capital for a project would be provided at the beginning to make building easier for a company, he said.
In terms of ownership, transitional housing and public housing will be owned by the GN, while affordable and market-value housing will be in the private sector, Devereaux said.
“If we help two families to get their own homes, we’re probably impacting four or five other families because they’re getting out of overcrowded situations,” Synard added.
Devereux said he doesn’t have an answer as to why the partnership didn’t come together sooner, but said there is a focus from Nunavut’s government and at the federal level for better housing.
Synard added issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated problems of housing in Nunavut, and overcrowding became an issue nationally.
Kusugak said Nunavut’s legislative assembly has identified better, and more, housing as a priority.
Creating a partnership was necessary because of the fast-rising costs of construction, he said.
“NCC became a natural fit,” Kusugak said.
An increase in housing projects should coincide with a boom in the territorial labour force as well, the housing corporation noted.
According to Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’s Inuit Nunangat housing strategy, every $1 million invested in housing in Nunavut generates nearly six jobs with each one paying approximately $63,600 per year.
Kusugak said training programs will be started in partnership with NCC to meet the need for workers. For updates on progress, the group will file annual reports, according to the housing corporation.
Pay attention to this statement “However, the 2030 housing targets can change depending on infrastructure being ready for more builds as well as private sector investments, the housing corporation noted.”
These are empty promises that will NOT result in 3,000 new homes for Nunaviummiut by 2030. Sorry to break the bad news. Politicians will say anything to look good and to promote themselves to the next paycheque.
Nunatsiaq news should investigate if Nunavut’s communities have the infrastructure ready for these new homes.
All of this low or no income housing. There is no incentive to be a homeowner or to work or have a career when everything is handed out. There are many people who are delaying graduating to stay in cheap housing. Many more refuse all the work available to them because they fear having to pay full rent. This is such a poor strategy. I mean NHC cannot even get all the condos offered to GN staff for purchase sold in a timely manner. Nunavut will forever be a transient place when all housing is government owned or subsidized. Where else in Canada is over 90% of homes public housing? Backwards.
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Should be No job, no home and 50% of construction costs back to anyone willing to build and stay for 5 years.
Yes and part of the problem is the ‘overcrowding’ of high paying jobs in various SUBSIDIZED housing.
Question I have seen posted but unanswered: when was the last time there was a rent increase in sponsored or emplyee housing units? How many YEARS ago?
When was the last time homeowners had more assistance? It has been YEARS and yet the increases are constant, all the while GN covers those increases for employees.
Additionally, high paying employees are living in the sponsored units, and perhaps often more than one high paying. Why is GN Public Housing based on income and yet GN employee units are not????? I mention GN since it is understood that Feds have scheduled and published yearly increases to their rent scale.
There is zero incentive to be a homeowner in Nunavut. If you live in rental housing you have a safety blanket. When something happens to break down, someone will come fix it, but good much luck getting your water heater fixed when you live in your own owned house. Have fun paying 20k$ to fly up a tech from the south.
Being a homeowner in Nunavut is difficult. However, nobody should be willfully blind to the benefits of homeownership. If you rent for 20 years at $2,500 a month all you have to show for it is a big pile of receipts totaling $600,000.00. You buy or build your own home, and in 20 years for the same money plus a down payment, you will have your own asset worth in excess of $600,000.00 that you could sell if you so choose. That is an enormous and foundational long term personal financial gain that is rarely appreciated in Nunavut. The reason for this is that it requires decades of personal commitment, discipline and continuous employment. That runs contrary to the spur-of-the-moment personal decisions that people feel they must have the freedom to make -like job hopping- and society tends to permit and make allowances for up here.
I feel as if you wrote this because you saw the opportunity to deliver a moral lecture on the standard gripes around “personal commitment, discipline and continuous employment” that often surface here.
Of course you’re not wrong about the benefits of home ownership, but any conversation on that topic needs to include the problem of our tiny and arguably inflated housing market and how little room it offers many average and interested buyers.
The average tenure of a GN employee (our largest employer) in Iqaluit (the biggest community) is less than 24 months. Full time, permanent, high paying jobs and nobody sticking around to get the job done. You are right that this issue is a question of values. The strategic accumulation of personal wealth through wage employment is not a fixture of Inuit culture. It is no use arguing that many more people could become homeowners with the right incentives if this is the case. People’s views of work have to evolve first.
Yeah but also, majority of the high paying jobs are given to southerners, with their expenses being paid, travel being paid, and gets benefits on top of that, I rarely see any perminent Nunavutmiut being hired for those positions also. There are many ambitious people, hard working people, but given little opportunities. Look at companies like northwest company, coop, and a lot of construction companies also bring in there employees from the south, makes me wonder how much of that money will go into other provinces.
High paying jobs are given to people qualified. You can’t staff highly skilled jobs with uneducated people. You can try but then you end up with what is 50% of the deputy ministers in Nunavut. If you want to work you’ll be paid your value. When you can earn $80k answering phones it’s hard to sympathize with anyone not working in Nunavut.
Which communities are getting this?
FINALLY, a plan by the premier,Lorne,and I see Tagak,and NCC, Tagak was in charge of delivering the housing and office buildings in 1999, and delivered it, any plan is better than none, and NCC is flush with cash I just hope in this plan they will build 10-15 percent for private homeowners to purchase.good luck in helping us
about million plus should be dedicated to assist ppl who want to take a mortgage to buy/build their homes, $50.000 grant for down payment assistance so many would qualify for mortgage from banks. how about repair/renovations to existing public housing; half has punched-in walls, so careless…..
$2.6B / 3000 units = $867k per unit. That seems a tad high, and by a tad, I mean over double what it should reasonably cost. Unless they’re including the necessary municipal infrastructure upgrades across the territory in this figure also, their cost estimate is absurd. Though on the surface, this would be great for the territory.
My bet is that NCC will buy modular homes that are made in China! Kinda like what they did with Aqsaarniit Hotel
Wait and see situation y’all. Remember all the promises we heard before. Don’t get your hopes way up.
I could NEVER or rather, I would NEVER own a home in Nunavut, it makes no sense. It is way too expensive to purchase or build, and then maintain. And it’s not like people can actually go to a Canadian Tire to buy what they need to maintain their home. And then there’s contractors who charge at minimum 10K.
I’ll buy a house in the South before buying a house in Nunavut.