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GN-NTI make $1.9 billion bid for Inuit housing

"We mean business this time. We are not fooling around."

JIM BELL

Together we are strong: Paul Kaludjak, the president of NTI, and Peter Kilabuk, Nunavut's housing minister, with the $1.9 billion Inuit housing proposal they submitted to the federal government early in September. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

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Nunavut's territorial government and Nunavut's land claim organization have handed the federal government a bold plan to build $1.9 billion worth of new housing for Inuit over the next 10 years.

"We want to let Inuit know about this. It touches everyone's family," said Kowesa Etitiq, a policy advisor at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. who worked on the proposal.

NTI and the Government of Nunavut joined forces about a year and a half ago to prepare the plan. Early last month they submitted it to Andy Scott, the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, and to Joe Fontana, the federal housing minister. This week, they revealed it to the public.

Called the "Nunavut Ten-Year Inuit Housing Plan," the proposal calls for the construction of 5,730 new housing units, and the renovation of 1,000 existing units.

"We mean business this time. We are not fooling around," NTI president Paul Kaludjak told reporters.

The construction would work as follows:

• 3,000 new units to catch up with Nunavut's current need and to reduce overcrowding;
• 2,730 new units to keep pace with the growth of Nunavut's Inuit population, 273 units a year for 10 years;
• the renovation of 1,000 existing units, 200 units a year for five years.

The total cost of building all those new units is estimated at about $1.4 billion over 10 years. The renovation program would cost $100 million over five years, or $20 million a year.

To pay the extra operation and maintenance costs for those new units, GN and NTI are asking for an additional $400 million over 10 years.

That's because it costs an average of $18,000 a year per unit just to maintain social housing in Nunavut. Heating and electricity costs alone amount to $11,370 per unit, per year.

Under the plan, construction would start in 2006-07, with 330 new units, at a cost of $83 million for that year. The yearly rate of new construction would slowly rise — by 2011-12, 700 units a year, at a cost of $175 million a year, would be built until the plan is completed in 2015-16.

Officials say the massive scheme would create full-time jobs for about 1,500 people, and provide work for nearly every construction contractor in Nunavut.

The GN and NTI are proposing that a new, Inuit-specific body be created to administer their new plan: the Inuit Social Housing Trust.

Representatives from Inuit organizations, the Nunavut Housing Corp., and the federal and territorial governments would sit on the Inuit Social Housing Trust's board of directors. Its job would be to ensure that all money used to carry out the plan would be spent on Inuit-specific housing.

"Accountability, cost-efficiency, innovation and cultural responsibility would be the driving forces behind the design and operation of the trust," the proposal document says.

GN and NTI officials acknowledge that prying all that money out of the federal government will take a lot of lobbying and political work.

"We plan to be persistent and consistent in our efforts," said Peter Kilabuk, Nunavut's minister responsible for housing.

Their 22-page proposal sets out the grim facts around Nunavut's housing situation — a crisis that is now turning into a disaster.

"GN resources are simply not enough to deal with the housing shortages that worsen every year," Kilabuk said.

Peter Scott, the president of the Nunavut Housing Corp., told reporters that it's not unusual in Nunavut for an entire family to be housed in a single bedroom.

Right now, 54 per cent of Nunavut Inuit live in overcrowded conditions. Officials say if their action plan is not carried out, 70 per cent of Nunavut Inuit will live in overcrowded conditions by 2016.

The first 3,000 units in the proposal would simply allow Nunavut to catch up with what the territory has lost since 1993. Since then, several one-time social housing construction programs have produced a few extra units in Nunavut, but not nearly enough to make up for the shortfall.

Since the creation of Nunavut, the GN has managed to scrape together enough cash to build about 50 units a year, only about two or three per community.

The remaining 2,370 units proposed in the plan would allow Nunavut to keep up with its projected growth in population over the next 10 years.

Officials point out that since 1993, the federal government poured a whopping $3.8 billion into housing for First Nations people living on reserves. At the same time, Inuit were excluded from virtually all aboriginal-specific housing money.

Paul Kaludjak said that this means the federal government is failing to meet its fiduciary responsibility to Inuit as aboriginal people, and he pointed out that Article 2 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement does not affect the ability of Inuit to benefit from government programs aimed at aboriginal people.

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