NUNAVUT/NWT - A total of 367 new public housing units will be built this year in Nunavut and the NWT by their respective housing corporations.

The Nunavut Housing Corp. will use structurally insulated panels (SIPs) to build some of the 285 new public housing units planned for this year. In this picture, the assembly of a house in Ontario is demonstrated to invited Nunavut contractors, off-camera. - photo courtesy of Nunavut Housing Corp.

The Nunavut Housing Corp. is planning a $63 million capital construction program, with $50 million coming from the federal government under its Economic Action Plan. The housing corp. is putting up the remaining $13 million.

In addition to building 285 new houses throughout the territory, the Nunavut Housing Corp. will construct 62 new staff housing units.

New pieces of infrastructure like the Inuit Cultural Learning Centre in Clyde River and the new correctional facility under construction in Rankin Inlet require the corporation to build new housing for staff, most of whom work for the Government of Nunavut, said Alain Barriault, president of the Nunavut Housing Corp.

Out of the 285 public housing units planned for construction, roughly 140 will be built using energy efficient structural insulated panels (SIPs) that will reduce fuel use by 50 per cent per unit, according to Barriault.

"This is the first year we're doing it," he said.

Last year, the housing corp. built 203 public housing units.

Since 2007, under the Nunavut Housing Trust, the housing corp. has constructed 735 units across Nunavut.

For the second year in a row, the NWT Housing Corp. is focusing a large part of its capital construction plan on renovating older units.

Out of the $54 million budget set out this year, $18 million will go toward 267 major renovation projects, said Robert C. McLeod, the minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corp.

"A lot of these are older units," said McLeod. "They're due for a mid-life retrofit. So we use that as an opportunity to upgrade the energy efficiency of the unit – windows and anything else that can be upgraded to make it more energy efficient and cheaper to operate."

An additional $13 million is earmarked for the construction of 82 new public housing units, while another $9 million will go toward the construction of 36 new private home ownership units.

Earlier this year, the GNWT released the results of a 2009 public housing survey that measured "core housing need" in all NWT communities.

Core need is measured using three factors: affordability, suitability (how many people live in a unit) and adequacy (the physical state of the building).

The study found overall core need increased by three per cent between 2004 and 2009, when the housing corp. built and repaired 1,750 units.

A recent factor cited by McLeod was the global economic downturn and its impact on productivity in the NWT.

"With the downturn in the economy, there's not as many people being able to afford units. I think that played a huge factor in bringing the overall core need down," he said.

Household need varied across the NWT, from a high of 36 per cent in the Nahendeh (the electoral district that consists of Fort Liard, Fort Simpson, Jean Marie River, Nahanni Butte, Trout Lake and Wrigley) to a low of 14 per cent in the North Slave.

Approximately 27 per cent of households in the Beaufort Delta were in core need compared with 36 per cent in the Sahtu and 17 per cent in the South Slave.

While it's too late to use the data to help craft the housing corporation's strategy for this year, "We're going to use these numbers on core need ... for 2011-12," said McLeod. "We're going to concentrate on a lot of the communities where core need is the highest. If we make investments in there, hopefully in a couple years we'll see the overall core need go down."