Sue Qitsualik couldn’t wait to tell her children that soon they would all have equal amounts of heat in their bedrooms.
“What a difference it’s going to make because the unit I’m in right now has cold spots. When you walk by, there’s one room where there’s practically no heat, so we just have a heater in there,” Qitsualik said of her current Yellowknife rental unit where her family of seven lives.
“I was telling my kids, the kids that stay in the room, that they’re going to have equal heat to the rooms. They’re not going to be in cold rooms.”
Qitsualik’s family is one of four new homeowners under the Habitat for Humanity NWT program, and she said her quality of life will improve greatly once they move into their new surroundings.
“I don’t have words. I’m excited and overwhelmed.”
Key moment
Since its inception in 2012, Habitat for Humanity has been “giving people a hand up, not a hand out,” said Alayna Ward, executive director of Habitat for Humanity NWT.
During a ‘key ceremony’ held recently in Yellowknife, families were presented with a symbolic key that denotes their home ownership through the program.
“It’s absolutely life changing for these families when they move in and they’re able to have their own home and save for their family’s future. It’s wonderful,” Ward said.
Three Yellowknife families and one Hay River family are now new homeowners.
Helping hands
Ward said it’s a community effort to complete such a project from start to finish and the length of time varies, depending upon the amount of preparation required.
“For example, in Yellowknife that process took over a year because the lots were bedrock, so they needed to be blasted and the rock needed to be hauled away and they had to be leveled, that sort of thing. So it took a little over a year,” she said.
For the most recent projects and after the initial ground preparation, Ward said although there is a contractor shortage in the area, they were able to place the homes, connect them to sewer and water, and then put the finishing touches on them within a few months.
From having the land donated by various governments, to sponsorship from service organizations such as the Yellowknife Elks Lodge #314 and the Yellowknife Community Foundation, to businesses donating discounted materials or contracting services, Ward said helping hands always make it a community project.
The new homeowners, too, are part of the project she said, as one of the requirements to qualify is that they must volunteer 500 hours of service in the community.
Northern carve-out funding
Funding for the project was recently announced by federal Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Sean Fraser as part of the National Housing Strategy to address the housing situation in the NWT.
“This investment of over $1.37 million is made possible through the National Housing Strategy’s Northern carve-out, which addresses the housing challenges and needs here in the Northwest Territories. Today’s announcement will support four different families with secure homes they can proudly call their own to raise their children and grandchildren in. I am pleased to see the National Housing Strategy come to life through examples such as this,” Fraser stated in a press release.
In 2021, the federal government announced a $60 million carve-out for the NWT under the National Housing Co-Investment Fund to be used to support the construction of 126 new and affordable, energy-efficient units.
Ward said because of the funding, this year they were able to build at a higher rate than previous years.
“So we now build at least two homes a year due to our agreement with CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) and with Housing NWT. This really accelerated our ability to be able to build more housing.
“Once we were able to hire an executive director and obtain some CMHC funding, that really steamrolled the process, and so we are able to build on a more consistent basis,” Ward said.
Another criterion and key feature for families to qualify for a home is one that is a barrier for many — the down payment, Ward said.
“(Habitat) builds strength and stability through affordable homeownership and helps families who might just need that extra leap,” she said. “Habitat really is that bridge to help people into affordable homeownership because there is no down payment needed and there’s no interest on the loan.
“But the North is still in a housing crisis and it will require millions of investment to even make a dent in the housing crisis and in the cost of affordable housing,” she said.
As for Qitsualik, while most people are excited about the arrival of the Christmas season, it is afterwards when she and her family get to move into their new home that has them most excited.
“They’ve made a big difference,” she said of the Humanity for Habitat crew. “And it’s the whole community that got involved to make this happen. So I am just overwhelmed and overjoyed.”
