Nunavut Housing Corp. heads gather in Rankin Inlet
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Rankin Inlet (Mar 21/01) - Housing association managers and chairpersons from across Nunavut are gathered in Rankin Inlet this week to discuss the association's current rent scale.
The housing representatives began their meeting yesterday and will conclude today, March 20.
Rankin Inlet housing director Darren Nichol says the rent scale impacts a number of other areas which are part and parcel of public housing.
He says that led to some discussion on other various issues, but the meeting's main focus was to discuss the rent-scale issue.
"The meeting is a review and consultation process with regards to existing rent-scale policy as it applies to the North.
"We're determining if the policy is still relevant and applicable to our situation."
The present scale came into effect in 1995 and the Rankin meeting marks the first time the policy has been reviewed by all of Nunavut's housing bodies.
"This was our first opportunity to sit down and garner some input on the rent scale since it's come into effect and it will be up to the Housing Corp. to determine how to use that input to revamp the housing scale -- if they want to revamp it at all.
"This is a good Housing Corp. initiative and I'm sure they'll be taking the information derived from this meeting and finding ways to apply it to existing territorial rental policy."
The representatives also found time to honour one of their own during the Rankin meetings.
Nichol says in the fall of 2000, the Nunavut Housing Corp. set up a logo contest, asking individuals from the various housing organizations and Housing Corp. offices to submit designs of potential Nunavut Housing Corp. logos.
"A fair number of logos were submitted, which they pared down to six finalists, and each housing organization had one vote as to which logo they preferred.
"The design of Ernest Akerolik, an employee of the Rankin Inlet Housing Association for the past three years, was selected and his design will now be adopted as the Nunavut Housing Corp.'s official logo."
