SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Paulatuk elder has endured months without heat since her furnace broke down last summer, causing tensions to rise in the Beaufort Delta community where frustrated residents have already tried to oust top employees at the local Housing Association over allegations of poor service.

Olga Ruben, 69, had been using a small Coleman gas stove, an electric space heater and blankets to keep warm since her main source of heat went down about two months ago.

The fuel stove in the house Olga owns had a hole burned through its burner pot for about a year, causing a fire hazard. It eventually broke down completely and Olga was approved for a new boiler system under the GNWT's Energy Efficiency Incentive program for homeowners in July, but the Housing Corporation still hasn't fully installed it.

Maintenance employees started to put it in earlier this month, but have only been working on it on weekends.

"I don't know how many weekends it's going to take to finish it," Olga's son, Ken Ruben, said from his home in Paulatuk. "Housing dragged their feet and kept putting it off until we're right in the middle of winter here.

Ken said they also installed a temporary furnace, but it, too, broke down, and his mother, who he described as "sickly" was too proud to move in with one of her children even when it was so cold inside her indoor water tank began forming a crust of ice in the mornings. Outside, temperatures in Paulatuk have been unseasonably warm, rarely dropping below -20 C.

"She barely could do anything in the house it was so cold. She basically had to walk around in shoes, jackets and sweaters and stay in a blanket for the whole day," Ken said, adding he hasn't heard a reasonable explanation as to why the Housing Corporation took so long to install the boiler when they knew his mother had no heat.

"They're really lucky that we're not having a normal winter here because then my mom's house would freeze up," he said. "She's really stressed. There's nothing else on her mind but that house."

Ken said work only started on the new boiler after he threatened to write letters to Nunakput MLA Jackie Jacobson and Housing minister Robert McLeod.

Keith Dowling, manager of the Paulatuk Housing Association, confirmed that although Olga owns the housing unit, the Association had been doing some repairs.

"We were doing some work there on behalf of the Housing Corporation and there is a functioning heat source in there and has been for some days now," he said, referring all other questions to the Housing Corporation's head office. A spokesperson in Yellowknife could not be reached for comment.

This incident has fuelled long-held frustrations among some Paulatuk residents about service they receive from the Housing Association.

In August, the community had a public meeting, to which MLAs were invited, to air their concerns, which included allegations of favouritism in completing repairs and accounts of indebted renters being evicted in the middle of winter.

Ultimately, Ken said, people wanted to oust the top employees of the Paulatuk Housing Association, who are not from the community.

"Almost three-quarters of the adult population in the community went to that meeting to express their disappointment and to demand the removal of these individuals, but nothing has yet been done," he said. "It's a pretty sad story on NWT Housing's part."

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