The worst job in Iqaluit

If anyone were ever to hold a contest for “worst job in Iqaluit” there’s one position that would surely be ranked as a leading contender: manager of the Iqaluit Housing Authority.

It’s a job that’s impossible to do without having to say “no” to hundreds of people who desperately want you to say “yes.”

The waiting list for public housing units in Iqaluit usually contains between 70 and 100 names at any given time. The number of new units built each year — that is, when there’s money to build them — is enough to fill only a tiny fraction of the real need. If you’re the manager of the Iqaluit Housing Authority, you have no choice but to say no to scores of desperate people in genuine need of housing. That’s no way to win a popularity contest.

Another unpleasant but necessary task is to oversee the eviction of tenants who cannot or will not pay back rent and damage charges, a process that often ends up in court. Throwing people onto the street, even if they’re incorrigible deadbeats, is no way to win a popularity contest either. But it must be done to ensure the housing authority collects the rent money it needs to pay its bills every year.

Iqaluit is, perhaps, the most dysfunctional community in Nunavut, home to many of Nunavut’s most dysfunctional people. So whoever runs the housing authority must also deal with the continual headache of maintaining a housing stock that’s constantly being damaged by things like vandalism, arson and various forms of recreational mayhem.

It’s a tough job, the kind of job that takes a special person to do well, and the kind of job that would be tough to fill it ever became vacant.

So why did the board — or former board — that oversaw the housing authority decide to fire the organization’s manager for what, at the most, was a minor transgression?

We’ll never know for sure, and perhaps it doesn’t matter anyway. Perhaps the understandable stress of managing Iqaluit’s public housing system at a time of dwindling supply and rising costs caused everyone to lose their perspective.

But one thing is certain. Kelvin Ng, the minister responsible for the Nunavut Housing Corp., had no choice but to remove the housing authority’s board when they dismissed the housing authority manager for no apparent just cause. Wrongful dismissal lawsuits can produce very expensive settlements, and it would have been foolish to have exposed the cash-strapped Iqaluit Housing Authority to such a liability, and would have been contrary to the public interest.

Housing authority boards aren’t elected anyway. They’re appointed by the minister, and serve at his pleasure. The appointment of an interim board, and the impending appointment of a new permanent board really changes nothing as far as tenants and the larger community are concerned.

Before 1985, Iqaluit did have an elected housing association, like most other Nunavut communities. But it was a corrupt and ineffective organization, and the territorial minister ended up dissolving it and appointing a housing authority in its place. Since then, there’s been no evidence that an elected housing association would work any better now than it did then.

Ng’s exercise of ministerial authority was necessary and correct. It was a tough decision that may not have been popular with some people — but it was the right one.

JB