Homelessness in Nunavut
How has it come to this?
Nunavut is home to about 40,000 people, 85 per cent of whom are Inuit. The territory was created in 1999 through the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (now called the Nunavut Agreement), which Inuit leaders fought to develop and formalize for decades leading up to the territory’s creation. It is the ancestral homeland of Inuit and has four official languages: Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtan, English and French.
Nunavut’s housing crisis dates back to the 1950s when the federal government began its efforts in earnest to colonize the North for reasons of sovereignty. The statistics today are as stark as they were back then: According to the Nunavut Housing Corp.’s 2020-2021 annual report, 22 of Nunavut’s 25 communities need at least 20 per cent MORE housing than they have to meet housing needs. Fourteen of those communities are in “critical need”, requiring at least 40 per cent more housing. The capital, Iqaluit, where the Uquutaq Society operates, there is a current need for 80 per cent more housing.
Other statistics paint a housing picture in Nunavut unlike anywhere else in Canada: About 70 per cent of all housing in Nunavut is public housing. Over half of the population (almost entirely Inuit) live in social housing. More than 40 per cent of houses are in need of major repairs, compared to just 7 per cent nationally. And more than half of all Inuit in Nunavut live in overcrowded conditions. All of these numbers are according to the Nunavut Housing Corp.’s Status of Housing 2020 report.
To those outside of Nunavut, these numbers likely appear staggering and mysterious: how did it come to this? But to many Inuit in Nunavut, their memories, stories and lived experiences know the answer to this question all too well. Please consider reading below to better understand the Nunavut context. Also consider exploring the linked resources to broaden your understanding.
A brief history lesson from the Qikiqtani Truth Commission
In 2007 the Inuit association in the Baffin region, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, established the Qiqiktani Truth Commission. Like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would be established a year later, the Qikiqtani Truth Commission (QTC) was steered by Indigenous (in this case Inuit) law experts and professionals who thoroughly collected, sifted through and analyzed first-hand testimony and documentation that describes a colonial experience and aftermath. The QTC focused on the experience of Inuit in the Baffin region between 1950 and 1975. One thematic report it published addressed housing in that time period.
For thousands of years before 1950, Inuit built year-round permanent shelters called qarmaq, which were usually semi-subterranean and made of stone, bone and sod. They constructed summer tent-like shelters called tupiq made of skins and, later, of canvas. It was only in the winter months when traveling between hunting areas that Inuit generally made igluvigaq (what most Canadians know as an igloo) because those shelters were quicker to construct. Inuit lived a nomadic lifestyle following harvesting practices.
Starting in the 1950s the federal government began making deliberate efforts to create permanent settlements in the eastern Arctic in order to strengthen its claims of sovereignty. This began the era of residential and day schooling in the North, as well as efforts to bring southern-style education, labour markets and health services. Housing was an important promise made by the government to convince Inuit to move to the settlements, set up in large part by the RCMP and federal bureaucrats. Specifically, the promise of constructing homes designed for Inuit to live in.
Those promises of housing never materialized.
For thousands of years before 1950, Inuit built year-round permanent shelters called qarmaq.
As late as 1975, Inuit in Iqaluit represented 70 per cent of the population, but occupied only 35 per cent of the housing.
“When spring came, we gathered wood scraps from the dump,” one Inuk testified to the QTC. “When summer came around, [we] started to build houses from the wood from the dump.”
Cardboard and paper were also used to try to keep out the Arctic cold while kerosene heating left residue inside the uninsulated homes Inuit built to survive.
“They took our house away,” by bulldozing our qarmaq, another Inuk testified. “We didn’t know who the government was, but we didn’t get any housing.”
Many were forced to survive as best they could in flimsy shelters in one of the coldest places on earth.
“They lived in a tent for eight months until Christmas,” another Inuk testified to the QTC. Arctic winters generally begin in October. “[My mother’s] leg was broken. She was staying in a tent with a broken leg.”
Meanwhile, the southern Canadians moving to what would become Nunavut received housing, “and the best housing at that,” the QTC report said.
“As late as 1975, Inuit in Iqaluit represented 70 per cent of the population, but occupied only 35 per cent of the housing,” said the report.
In the late 50s, the government introduced a housing program to encourage Inuit to purchase homes. But those programs are largely seen as failures.
“A 1960 estimate reported that only 6 per cent of Inuit in all regions had ever experienced steady wage employment. Without consistent wages, Inuit could not be expected to make regular payments towards their housing,” the report said.
Around the same time, some officials were promoting overt segregation.
“If the long range plan is to provide every Eskimo family with a house, then they should be built in the camps,” a few kilomteres outside of Iqaluit, an RCMP officer recommended. “If a closer relationship between the Eskimo and the administrator is desired, then the administrator should visit the Eskimo in his camp.”
The term “Eskimo” is seen by many in Nunavut as racist and offensive and is largely no longer accepted.
The QTC concludes that the priorities between Inuit and the government were “very different.” The government expected Inuit to want what was important to suburban Canadians; while to many Inuit, owning a home was illogical because those with less “had a right to share in the bounty of those with apparent plenty.” This philosophy allowed Inuit to survive and thrive for millennia in one of the harshest climates on earth, but was simply not understood by those designing and implementing the new colonial regime.
“Houses in all communities provide evidence about an inferior building stock that was designed without input from the people who understood the environment and were destined to occupy the buildings,” the QTC report concluded
If a closer relationship between the Eskimo and the administrator is desired, then the administrator should visit the Eskimo in his camp. -RCMP officer, 1960
Today: Homelessness in Nunavut
The face of homelessness in Nunavut today takes on many forms: from those who live in uninsulated shacks that burn down with a frightening regularity; to those who couchsurf from one night to the next; to those who have to trade drugs, sex or other favours for a roof over their head.
Homelessness can take on hidden forms, the Government of Nunavut’s 2020’s “Hidden Homelessness Survey” said. That includes couchsurfing, overcrowded homes and those sleeping in places that are not meant to be slept in. Overcrowded homes result in “an increase in violence, substance abuse, conflict, and suicide,” the report said. Many “have no choice but to seek shelter in unstable and unhealthy places where they are at risk of violence, exploitation, trafficking and continued cycles of addiction.”
Please Consider Giving
Your donation can help Uquutaq do its part to address these gross inequalities. Your donations go directly to providing benefits to individuals in need including more beds and shelters, more services, more housing and more food and other basic necessities such as bedding, winter clothing and toiletries. Your donations will help more Inuit gain the dignity of independence that every Canadian deserves.