
Nunavut Territory is in the far north of Canada. It is home to about 10,000 households, according to the last census. And its housing stock is in need of attention. The last census reports:
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- 2,640 (27%) homes are in need of major repairs.
- 3,310 (32%) homes are assessed to be unsuitable1.
- 1,190 (12%) homes are both in need of major repairs and unsuitable.
These levels much are higher than anywhere else in the country, where 6.1% of homes are in need of major repairs and 5.4% are unsuitable.
The housing conditions have knock on effects for Nunavut’s population, some of them literal. People experiencing violence in their home have nowhere else to go.
There is also a higher risk for communicable diseases, including tuberculosis2, which public health officials and residents stuggle to keep under control. Adding more homes would boost these efforts.
The government of Nunavut isn’t blind to this issue. It has a housing plan, which calls for building 3,000 new homes by 2030. The majority of the story in the newscast linked below is about one new home that has been completed.
In the face of such overwhelming need, we could sneer at one home, but let’s look more closely.
Building in the north involves bringing in materials to communities that are far from existing supply chains. This adds to the cost of home construction.
The majority of existing homes in Nunavut were built by a limited number of outside contractors. The combination of supply chain constraints and a small number of contractors creates opportunities for price fixing3.
The home in this story was built by students at Nunavut Arctic College, a publicly-funded local training institution. College faculty directed the construction and provided coaching and support to the students. Learning to build homes helps to develop a local construction workforce and reduce the need to hire outside builders.
Testing on a small scale is a modest start. It could help to shift the approach to building homes in Nunavut.
You can check out this report from APTN News: College students hand over housing project to Nunavut’s Public Housing Corporation
Footnotes
- Suitability generally refers to overcrowding. The average household size in Nunavut is 3.7 people and larger than the average of 2.4 across Canada. The definition of suitability is controversial. The definition considers the number of bedrooms in a home and the number and gender of people who live there. The definition has been applied by child protection agencies as a justification for taking children into care. For more on this controversy, try: Indigenous Knowledge And Experience Central To Housing, Homelessness And Urban Development
- Try: O Canada! The True North Weak And Diseased . . .
- For more about this situation, in Nunavut’s neighbour, the Northwest Territories, try: Cold Facts: While The Govts Snooze, The REITs Abuse And The Tenants Lose