How much federally owned housing sits empty in the NWT?

Years have passed since the federal government said it would stop directly providing RCMP housing in some NWT communities. What has happened to those homes?

In 2016, Ottawa announced the department now known as Public Services and Procurement Canada would cease to provide housing for RCMP officers in six NWT communities: Yellowknife, Hay River, Inuvik, Norman Wells, Fort Smith and Fort Simpson.

The NWT government picked up the slack.

In June 2019, the territorial housing agency now named Housing NWT agreed a deal to deliver six RCMP housing units in Fort Smith, three in Norman Wells, 17 in Inuvik, 12 in Hay River and seven in Fort Simpson.

The territory said at the time this represented a good deal as it would bring in extra lease revenue that could be spent on other housing needs.

Over the ensuing years, federally owned units have been slowly emptying as RCMP families move from federal to territorial housing stock.

But that doesn’t mean the federal units simply vanish. So what is happening to the units that officers and their families vacate?

This question was posed to then-housing minister Paulie Chinna nearly three years ago.

“With all these new units that are being for RCMP, what are we doing with the old units?” Inuvik Twin Lakes MLA Lesa Semmler asked.

“Are we going to absorb them into GNWT and are we going to use those to reduce our public housing waitlist?”

Chinna replied that she was “in conversations with the federal government and I want those units to be transferred over to the housing corporation, so we would be able to work with the Northwest Territories and add that to our public housing stock.”

“There is possibly an opportunity to work with the Indigenous groups as well,” she added, “as they would have preference before the GNWT.”

Empty federal housing in Fort Simpson

Fort Simpson is one of the communities where federal homes are emptying as territorially provided properties take over.

Over the past year, former village mayor Sean Whelly says, around a dozen units in Fort Simpson were vacated by RCMP officers and their families. Six of those units, Whelly believes, are suitable for someone else to immediately move in.

“In a perfect world, these 11 units would be usable by people and be rented and owned,” Whelly told Cabin Radio.

“People aren’t sure what’s going on because they see empty houses and they think those should be used by somebody.”

Of the 12 properties owned by Public Services and Procurement Canada in Fort Simpson, the federal department told Cabin Radio eight are in “various stages of disposal,” two are still inhabited by RCMP families, and two empty units are “being assessed for ongoing federal requirements.”

“Other federal departments and agencies are also custodians of northern housing; however, PSPC is not in a position to answer questions related to their properties,” the statement added.

Cabin Radio understands at least two units in Fort Simpson will remain empty this winter.

As of last year, there were 18 village residents on the Housing NWT waitlist. The average wait for a public housing unit in Fort Simpson is one year and two months.

In 2022, Chinna told the legislature any federal assets being sold off – including homes – would be offered first to Indigenous governments, then federal departments, then the territorial government, and lastly municipalities.

After that, units would be listed on the open market for private sale, Chinna noted.

For this last step, the federal government launched a Public Land Bank to showcase property for sale. Two sites in the Northwest Territories are currently listed: one in Inuvik and one in Norman Wells.

Fort Simpson’s new mayor, Les Wright, says he would like to see vacant federal units given to local Indigenous governments or non-profits to help fight the territory-wide housing crisis.

He says the cost of building from scratch is nearly three times the cost of renovating and abating, which is why he’d like units to be offered up before they are demolished or otherwise removed.

“In a perfect world, I’d like them to be given to the community so that they can be put on the rental market,” Wright said.

“Any time you’re renovating a home, it’s more efficient than starting right from scratch and building from the ground up.

“I’ve done asbestos abatement before, and it wouldn’t be hard to make these houses rentable.”