Iqaluit (July 17/06) - Nunavut will see 725 new housing units go up over the next three years.

That's how the territorial government will spend the $200 million it received earlier this year from the federal government.

The number of units is down slightly from earlier estimates of 800 new homes.

"These new housing units will help in our battle against overcrowded housing," housing minister Olayuk Akesuk said in a news release.

Nunavut needs roughly 3,000 units to relieve widespread overcrowding and get its occupancy rate down to the national average.

Iqaluit will see 57 units built over the next three years, while Arviat and Baker Lake will each receive 52. Most of the new houses will come in the form of five-plex buildings. There are more than 15,000 Nunavummiut living in public housing units.

The allotments are "based on the assumption the more tenants you have the more overcrowding you'll have in a community," said Peter Scott, president of Nunavut Housing.

At the same time, Scott said smaller communities gained slightly at the expense of the larger ones, to reap the economic benefits of new construction.

"We skimmed a few units off the large communities and gave some (units) to the smaller, decentralized communities," he said.

Decentralized communities got fewer government jobs and new infrastructure when Nunavut was created, Scott said.

Municipalities are happy for new housing units, even if Wednesday's announcement doesn't mean an end to overcrowding.

"This is a start, but I'm not sure they're enough," said Imelda Angootealuk, senior administrative officer for Repulse Bay, which is getting 26 new units under the program. "There are babies being born every month."

Pond Inlet's senior administrator Malachi Arreak agrees.

"At this point it's a bandage-to-a-wound solution, but we'll take all the units we can get," he said. Pond Inlet will get 36 new units by 2009.

The money for the new housing was announced in May's federal budget. Arviat's senior administrative officer, Cary Merritt, criticized the length of time between the budget and the Wednesday's announcement.

He also wonders if there are enough skilled tradespeople to build and maintain the houses.

Arreak wonders too, because Pond Inlet has no trained electricians.

The Department of Education will help train new apprentice tradespeople to work on construction of the new units, Scott said. That will produce 35 to 40 tradespeople who can work for local housing associations maintaining the new buildings, he added.

Akesuk said the government will try to have construction supplies ordered in time to get on the season's last sealift.