Noise, partying and deaths at Tuk home reported to rental office

Tenants in Tuktoyaktuk will be given one more chance to keep their unit after reports from the housing association that people had died there.

In a decision issued last month, an NWT rental officer said the two tenants – whose names are not given – could remain in the unit as long as they did not cause any further disturbances.

The details of exactly what happened were not specified, but the housing association alleged the tenants had caused damage amounting to almost $10,000 and repeatedly triggered complaints.

Concerns about noise, partying or violence were recorded in February, March, April and August this year.

In her decision, rental officer Janice Laycock said Tuk’s housing association had “testified that in January and July 2024, individuals were found to be unresponsive and removed from the rental unit.”

“They believe that these deaths are as a result of heavy drinking and partying,” Laycock reported.

No further information about those incidents is recorded.

Laycock said eviction of the tenants would be justified, but the housing association supported the issuing of a conditional order. That means the eviction won’t come to pass if the tenants “comply with their obligation to not disturb other tenants” until at least the end of the calendar year.

The tenants are ordered to pay $9,400 to cover various forms of damage.

Huge arrears in Inuvik case

Meanwhile, in a separate decision published on the same day, an Inuvik public housing tenant was ordered to pay more than $50,000 in rental arrears.

The tenant began living in subsidized public housing on December 1, 2017 according to the rental officer’s decision.

By 2021 they had amassed $26,000 in arrears. Inuvik’s housing authority testified that no payments toward that had been received and new arrears piled up in the ensuing years, not least because the tenant hadn’t supplied the paperwork reporting their household income that would allow the rent to be subsidized.

The rental officer said an email from RCMP was also entered into evidence, reporting “crack cocaine, powder cocaine, cash and drug paraphernalia” at the unit.

Including the cost of being locked out of the unit on three occasions, the tenant was ordered to pay almost $57,000 to the housing authority and an eviction order was issued.

Cost of maintaining units

Last week, Inuvik Boot Lake MLA Denny Rodgers said the town’s public housing was in need of money for care and maintenance.

Rodgers also alluded to problems related to drugs in some Inuvik housing complexes.

“There’s likely about seven units that still require repairs,” Rodgers said in the legislature as he pressed housing minister Lucy Kuptana to find more money to speed up that process.

“And I say this because we do have some folks living in our apartment building, that Housing leases, that we know is a known area for drug consumption and drug selling in there. So our list is quite long,” he said.

“I know there’s at least five units right now that have no funding allocated for them … Can we get a commitment of a plan going forward to get all these units repaired within the next 12 months?”

Kuptana said no such commitment could be made.