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Derek Neary
Northern News Services
In Fort Providence, Paschalina Thurber said she scrubs downs her walls every third month to keep the mould at bay. The basement in her five-year-old Housing Corporation home has flooded twice. Thurber said she complained about the problem at a Housing Corporation meeting a year ago but nothing has been done.
Lucy Lomen, of Fort Liard, said she spent close to eight months in a senior's unit last year while repairs were made to her Housing Corporation home. It was infected with mould for a number of years due to a leaking foundation, she said.
In Fort Simpson, Herb Rodh's 10-year-old unit has already been renovated several times, costing the Housing Corp. close to $200,000, a figured confirmed by a Housing Corporation official.
"For the money they spent on this house already they could have almost built two more," said Rodh, a certified carpenter who uses a level to demonstrate that some walls and frames in his house aren't even flush.
Despite the repeated repairs, the window screens still pop out and fungus has started to grow in the crawlspace. Rodh has a report from a health inspector stating that the presence of mould in his home was a definite health concern.
The constant dampness in the house also exacerbates his arthritis, he noted.
The aforementioned complaints are familiar to Nahendeh MLA Kevin Menicoche.
Still dissatisfied
"A lot of people are still dissatisfied with the construction of the older (Housing Corporation) units," Menicoche said, adding that he has brought this to the government's attention. "We have to keep fixing them up because they weren't properly done the first time." Tom Beaulieu, president of the Housing Corporation for four years before being transferred to the NWT Development Corporation earlier this month, said he's confident that the Housing Corporation's homes are of good quality. He said they have adequate air flow and tenants who put a "minimum level of maintenance" into the house are generally satisfied.
"The idea that the houses are (built) too tight for normal day-to-day living, I can't see that being the case or we'd have mould in all our houses," he said, adding that there are over 2,250 public housing units across the NWT. Routine inspections are performed regularly, he noted.
"These are not houses that are going to fall apart or that are not a good, standard unit because we're the ones that are usually saddled with the responsibility of coming back and doing maintenance on them," he said.
Nevertheless, the Housing Corporation has faced some difficult circumstances across this vast territory over the years.
For example, when tenders and negotiated contracts are awarded to build houses in NWT communities, local labourers are usually hired, but one of the criteria is that a qualified project manager will be on site. However, Beaulieu noted that there have been occasions when the individuals with the expertise don't complete the job.
"A contractor can go do something else or get more than one job and put an unqualified person on site. It causes us problems as well," he said.
Larry Campbell, Housing Corp. manager for the Deh Cho region, pointed out that the larger centres such as Yellowknife have housing inspectors and Workers' Compensation Board inspectors who monitor projects closely. Smaller communities, on the other hand, are often limited to Housing Corp. technical staff "who keep on top of this stuff as much as they can," he said.
Liable for deficiencies
Getting a certified housing inspector, an electrical inspector or a gas inspector in smaller communities can take a long time. Therefore, the Housing Corporation has usually held the general contractor or sub-contractor liable for construction deficiencies, Campbell explained.
"But then when you go back to find the person that built this house in 1994, that company now is defunct," he said. "We're left holding the bag."
Some of the houses erected in the 1980s and earlier were built by the owners through a "sweat equity" program.
Some of those do-it-yourself types didn't necessarily use the best practices, Campbell suggested.
"At the time there was nobody there to say it was being done wrong," he said.
Deh Cho MLA Michael McLeod acknowledged that as a regular MLA in his last term he called for qualified tradespersons to do proper inspections. That's something he's still making a priority now as housing minister, he said.
"I'm putting the message out to our officials that we have to step up the detailed inspections," said McLeod.
"Up to now, maybe a little bit of leeway was given because (with) most of the houses, the Corporation wanted to see local contractors and local builders do them. But we're at a point now where it's getting to be very serious. It's starting to become very costly... We can't have (tenants) carrying extra costs because the quality of inspections was not there."
