Is the NWT’s housing actually getting any better?

New housing data proves what most people in the NWT already know – the territory’s housing crisis persists.

The data may also offer a slight glimmer of hope.

Every five years, the NWT Bureau of Statistics evaluates the territory’s homes based in part on three criteria:

• adequacy – does it need major repairs or not;
• affordability – do the home and associated bills like water, heat, electricity and insurance cost less than 30 percent of household income; and
• suitability – does it have enough rooms for all the people trying to live in it?

The last survey, in 2019, reported that 43 percent of NWT homes had at least one of those problems.

The 2024 survey employed the concept of core need. If a home has at least one of the three above problems and the household income is below a set threshold, that home is considered to be in core need.

The 2024 data indicates 23 percent of households in the NWT are in core need. The lowest percentages were found in Dettah (13.5 percent) and Fort Smith (16.8 percent), while the highest came in Wrigley (48.5 percent) followed by Paulatuk (48.4 percent.)

In the past decade, the number of households in core need increased in almost every region of the NWT – the Beaufort Delta, Dehcho, Sahtu, South Slave and Yellowknife area.

Only the Tłı̨chǫ region registered a decrease. While the Tłı̨chǫ has the highest percentage of dwellings in core need, that figure dropped from 44 percent in 2014 to 32.7 percent in 2024.

The potential good news? In the shorter term, the picture looks a little better. Four of the six regions reported fewer households in core need last year compared to 2019. That may indicate the beginning of a positive trend.

One of the greatest housing issues across the NWT is adequacy, the data suggests – the state of the building and the repairs it needs.

NWT housing minister Lucy Kuptana told Cabin Radio there are currently an estimated 45,000 preventative maintenance tickets sitting with Housing NWT.

Of those, 15,000 are annual health and safety tickets. The other 30,000, she said, are maintenance tickets for things in need of repair.

“There seems to be an overload in the housing system right now that we can’t keep up,” said Kuptana, who has been the housing minister since December 2023.

“One of the things I’m finding is our capacity is much lower than it used to be. We had tradespeople working in housing, local housing organizations for many years, but our capacity has dialled back.”

To address this backlog, Kuptana said more apprentice positions are being added to local housing organizations. Thirteen will be created in the 2025-26 fiscal year.

She says her department has had initial discussions with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment about encouraging more people into the labour force and those jobs.

“Many people shy away from it because they’re worried their rent is going to increase,” said Kuptana, explaining that some people think an immediate rise in income will mean higher rent in public housing units.

However, Kuptana explained, rent is assessed on an annual basis and is based on a person’s income tax filing from the previous year. That gives people a chance to financially catch up before receiving a rent increase.

Kuptana said there are also barriers that get in the way of homeowners accessing repair programs. She said Housing NWT is looking at updating the income threshold for core need status, which hasn’t changed in several years. A new threshold could help more people apply for funding.

“I want to accelerate the work around the coordinated income threshold policy,” said Kuptana.

“We have to make sure we do it carefully, things are examined and analyzed and we’re not rushing things. But still, after a while, you need to make a decision and move on policy.”

Affordability improved in most of the NWT between 2019 and 2024. In the Yellowknife region, the percentage of households reported to be unaffordable halved from 29.2 percent to 14.2 percent.

Kuptana isn’t sure what is behind those figures. She said she often hears on community tours that housing is unaffordable for people like harvesters because living costs are so high.

“I just worry that if they can’t afford the gas to go out harvesting, or the equipment to go out harvesting, how they’re going to afford to live,” she said, “and housing plays a big piece in it.”

Zero-percent vacancy rate

Inuvik is a case study. It’s one of several NWT communities where the data shows an increase in inadequate dwellings, meaning more homes where major repairs are needed.

The town has a mix of privately owned housing, public housing and rentals owned by landlords like Northview REIT and the Inuvialuit Development Corporation.

Mayor Peter Clarkson also owns several rental properties.

“Over the years, I’ve been purchasing housing that needs to be fixed up. So I buy it, I fixed it up, and then I offered for rent,” said Clarkson.

“In 25 years of renting, I never once had a unit that was vacant and I usually had 10 people on a wait list, and would receive anywhere from two to five calls a week from people looking for a place. That’s how short the housing currently is in Inuvik.”

He said that imbalance between supply and demand makes it difficult to carry out major repairs that would require occupants to vacate the premises.

“You don’t want to kick somebody out,” he explained, characterizing that as the equivalent of saying: “Oh, sorry, we’re going to fix your place up but you have to find another place to live for the next three months or six months while we fix it up. And by the way, there’s no place else you can go, so good luck with that.”

Clarkson said progress is being made. Approximately 60 residential lots are being developed after the land was purchased by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and Gwich’in Tribal Council.

Inuvialuit Regional Corporation Chair Duane Smith said the 33 lots purchased by the corporation are likely to become three or four-bed homes. Designs haven’t been finalized.

The GTC also brought in six modular housing units last fall that Clarkson said are being set up for occupants. (The GTC could not be reached for comment.)

Clarkson said funding in the GNWT’s 2025-26 budget will also cover the repair of about 30 Inuvik units operated by Housing NWT. He hopes that means units left unoccupied while they awaited maintenance will be returned to service, “and that will help with our zero vacancy rate.”

Smith said the IRC decided to pursue housing projects because communities were in “dire need” and the Indigenous government felt the GNWT was not taking sufficient action.

“They hadn’t built a house within this region for over 20 years,” said Smith. “That is a clear lack of focus or commitments or planning on their behalf.”

Smith said the IRC worked with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization, to secure federal funding for housing across the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

He said the IRC is considering both stick-built houses constructed in each community or pre-fabricated options that can endure northern weather.

Meanwhile, an IRC maintenance program that helps Elders acquire energy-efficient home upgrades and furnaces is in its third year. Smith said it has covered 300 houses to date with 150 more on the list.

‘They don’t really help much at all’

In 2024, the Dehcho community of Wrigley – which has a population of about 117 according to the 2021 census – had the highest percentage of households in core need.

Nearly two-thirds of Wrigley homes were deemed inadequate.

Derek Sutherland, band manager for the Pehdzeh Ki First Nation in Wrigley, said many of the community’s homes are 40 to 50 years old or more.

“There’s maybe a few that are a bit newer, but even the newer ones need a lot of maintenance,” said Sutherland.

While he doesn’t doubt Housing NWT has good intentions, he said Wrigley has had trouble working with the agency to address some issues.

“It’s not that their maintenance people are bad,” he said. “It’s just they’re not here.”

Sutherland describes three territorially owned homes that have sat empty for years and may require maintenance before they can be used again. He said PKFN is on the verge of completing those repairs itself so the units can be occupied.

“We’re to the point of losing our patience here,” said Sutherland, adding the First Nation has been in discussions with the GWNT about this for close to a decade.

He said the territory recently advised the First Nation that the community’s concerns are being looked into but, in the meantime, teachers coming to Wrigley who need housing are lining up.

“We don’t have anything to offer these teachers. Nothing,” said Sutherland. “It’s not only the members that have the housing concerns, it’s also people that would come in and help.”

‘It goes against what we’re hearing’

Did you raise an eyebrow at the part where affordability reportedly improved? You’re not alone.

“It’s just really interesting to me to see the affordability – both in Hay River but more so in the Northwest Territories – improving by such a significant margin,” said Hay River town manager Glenn Smith.

“I think it goes against, intuitively, what we think we’re hearing in the marketplace.”

He said the number of affordable dwellings available in Hay River took a hit in 2019 when a fire left the town’s only high-rise uninhabitable. That took 110 units off the market, said Smith, and they haven’t yet come back.

Smith said town staff met with the high-rise’s owners about a month ago to make them aware of retrofit incentives available to them.

“There’s still a conversation going on but, at this point, still no permits that have been applied for,” said Smith.

Smith said recent natural disasters such as flooding and wildfires could be a contributing factor toward the increased proportion of Hay River housing reported to be in need of major repair, up from 17.6 percent in 2019 to 23.2 in 2024.

He added there were roughly 500 residential property claims made to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs’ Disaster Financial Assistance program after the floods in 2022. Some people are still carrying out those repairs.

Like other communities, Smith said, Hay River has homes that are sometimes close to 60 years old and becoming more difficult to maintain.

The lack of tradespeople to carry out repairs is also an issue here, so much so that it’s listed in the town’s community housing plan as a barrier to adequate housing.

Smith noted that new housing projects such as Riverside Suites, which was completed in late 2024 and brought 44 new rental units to market, would not have been captured in the 2024 housing report. Surveys for the report were completed between January and October last year.

Last week, Hay River town councillors discussed adopting a new “unoccupied housing strategy” that would, in part, work toward making available vacant units owned by the territorial and federal governments.

Smith said there may be complications to work through, but all levels of government have indicated housing is a priority.

“If we’re all saying it’s at the top of our priority list, then we want to challenge those governments to get those houses back on the market,” he said.

Housing, homelessness under one roof

NWT housing minister Kuptana said she is working toward seeing improved conditions reflected in the next data, which is due in 2029.

One of the major outcomes of this year’s budget negotiations between cabinet and MLAs was an extra $41.6 million for housing, above the existing commitment.

Kuptana said Housing NWT will use that cash to work with Indigenous governments and local companies on expanding the territory’s housing portfolio and offering “a better type of housing across the North.”

As an example, she said Housing NWT’s partnership with Hay River-based Metcan – which will see the building of 33 units – is proving successful. The minister is also looking forward to collaborating with Ne’Rahten Developments Ltd and the K’asho Got’ı̨nę Housing Society, which are building a home construction centre in Fort Good Hope.

“This is something that’s really exciting, and I’m hoping to see more things like that across the Northwest Territories,” said Kuptana.

She said Housing NWT is working on a territorial housing needs assessment, which will involve community engagement this summer and the publication of a report later in the year.

Homelessness recently returned to the housing minister’s portfolio in a cabinet shuffle. For the past few years, it had been the responsible of the premier through Executive and Indigenous Affairs.

“It has to be together,” said Kuptana of housing and homelessness, and “it can’t just be one size fits all, it can’t just be market homes and public housing.”

She wants to replicate elsewhere in the NWT a transitional housing program operated by the Salvation Army that opened last month in Yellowknife. A similar program is in the works for Inuvik.

“It’s going to be really hard work,” the minister said, “but it’s also going to be good work, because we’re working in collaboration.”