Hamlet to get 70 new public housing units by 2030
Sarah Samayualie and Qiatsuq Ragee in their house in Kinngait with their adult daughter and three grandkids. Left to right: Sarah Samayualie, Inuluk Mathewsie, Sandra Samayualie, Aniqmiuq Mathewsie, Geetita Samayualie and Qiatsuq Ragee. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
NationTalk: Nunatsiaq News – Sarah Samayualie and Qiatsuq Ragee have lived in their three-bedroom burgundy house for the past 20 years.
It was built in the 1960s just across from Kinngait’s local Northern store and “sometimes smells like rot,” Ragee said.
Nunatsiaq News met up with the couple in their house on a summer day in July to see what their living situation is like and what they hope the territorial government’s housing plans can offer for them.
Officials from Nunavut Housing Corp. and other government organizations toured the hamlet the following day, looking at potential lots for housing for Nunavut 3000, a $2.6-billion project to build 3,000 new units across the territory by 2030.
Kinngait is set to get 70 new public housing units as part of the plan.
Samayualie and Ragee acquired their house in 2004 after two years on the public-housing waitlist and now pay $60 a month for it, which is the minimal rent for public housing units in Nunavut, according to the Nunavut Housing Corp. website. It’s available to tenants with an annual household income under $33,280.
The family was reluctant to show their home at first.
Sarah Samayualie and Qiatsuq Ragee are hoping to apply for one of the new units promised as part of Nunavut 3000. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
“I’m not sure you want to see it,” Ragee said.
The house has three small bedrooms with queen-size mattresses almost completely filling the space of each one. Taking up the rest of the rooms are clothes, hanging from the walls or just stored in piles on the floor.
There are cracks and holes in the walls, some hidden behind photos and art prints.
Most of the kitchen cabinet doors don’t close and inside the house is the smell of mould.
Ragee said he and his family live “like everyone else” in Kinngait. Ragee was born in 1967 just outside of Kinngait in a house “made of rocks and grass,” he said, while Samayualie was born in the hamlet.
They both have lived in Kinngait their whole lives and they both used to work at the Co-op. Now, Ragee makes and sells his art.
The pair lives with three of their four adult children, as well as their three grandchildren, who often sleep in the house along with their mothers.
“And there is another grandkid on the way,” Ragee said.
In Kinngait, it’s common to see people of three or four generations crowded under the same roof, said Kinngait assistant senior administrative officer for Janice Mathewsie during a meeting with the housing team last week. She added this overcrowded situation leads to “sexual and health issues.”
One in three households in Nunavut have five or more people living under the same roof, according to 2021 data from Statistics Canada.
About 35 per cent of homes do not have enough bedrooms for their occupants, compared to five per cent nationally, according to a 2020 report by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. At the same time, 48 per cent of Nunavummiut live in houses that are “functionally unsuitable.”
“There is a mismatch in the required number of bedrooms for a household based on the age, sex and relationships among household members,” according to the Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. report.
“I think that’s kind of what Nunavut 3000 is all about,” said Juanie Pudluk, the associate deputy minister of Nunavut Housing Corporation, during the meeting in the Kinngait hamlet office.
“It’s to try and alleviate that issue, and it hopefully helps out with the social and health issues.”
That said, Pudluk said that the greatest demand in Nunavut is for smaller units for smaller families.
“I think what the housing corporation primarily is trying to do is build as many units as it can to meet the housing backlog and need, which primarily is in people that need one and two-bedroom units for families that are growing,” he said.
Despite that, Samayualie and Ragee are hoping to get a chance to apply for one of the new units promised by Nunavut 3000. And they want something with more rooms so their children and grandchildren can live with them.
Ragee also has a small, personal wish — a coffee table.
“But look there is no space,” he said pointing at the approximately one metre between the family’s couch and the living room cabinet.
“We want more space,” Samayualie said. “We have a good life with our grandchildren, but we need more space.”
Sarah Samayualie and Qiatsuq Ragee live in their three-bedroom one-storey burgundy house built in the 1960s just across from the Kinngait’s local Northern store. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)