Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Sep 07/05) - Federal Housing Minister Joe Fontana put his resources where his mouth is during his recent visit to Rankin Inlet.

Mayor Lorne Kusugak says Fontana has committed to using his staff to work with the hamlet in order to prepare a community housing strategy for Rankin.

Fontana spoke of the need for individual community plans while visiting the Kivalliq earlier this month.

Kusugak says the commitment shows Fontana is prepared to do what it takes to address housing issues in Rankin. "This will be the first such strategy in the Kivalliq," says Kusugak.

"We're excited about getting it in place and starting to utilize it to address the shortage of housing in Rankin.

"The strategy will encompass such issues as how many houses we have versus how many we need. We will also look at how many houses are vacant in our community through government leases and so on."

Kusugak says he wants to get busy working on ideas with the local housing association on how to utilize units that are sitting empty in the community.

He says the plan will also identify people in the community interested in a Home Ownership Assistance program. "Personally, I'd like to see this plan completed within six months.

"If not, then by next spring at the very latest."

Kusugak says federal funds are available to renovate homes built in the 1970s, but not to build new ones.

He says some of those houses started out as three-bedroom homes, but have been renovated so often that they're now only one- or two-bedroom homes.

"We have homes that would only require an extra bedroom or two to really help us address the problem we have with families living in overcrowded conditions.

"So, in our talks, we can discuss the need to do additions instead of just always pure renovations.

"We also need to look at things like more energy-efficient systems within our housing units.

"These are all important components to the same problem."