‘Modernized’ Nunavut Homeownership Assistance Program began here
Our Home, an 8,000-word, four-part special series Nunatsiaq News published in March 2023 was a catalyst for the new Nunavut Homeownership Assistance Program recently rolled out by the Nunavut Houisng Corp. That program will provide up to $250,000 in forgivable loans to Nunavummiut who want to build their own houses from government-supplied building materials. (File photo)
If success has 1,000 fathers, a special Nunatsiaq News section is one of the sires of the new NHAP
A year ago, no one was talking about the Homeownership Assistance Program until a Nunatsiaq News reporter pulled it from the dustbin of history, brushed off the cobwebs and gave everyone a fresh look at it.
Now, the Nunavut Homeownership Assistance Program is going to give Nunavummiut the chance to own their own house with $250,000 in government funding along with some do-it-yourself labour.
The Government of Nunavut calls it a “modernized” version of the HAP program that existed from 1983 to 1992.
That program gave people a shipment of free building materials from the Northwest Territories government and blueprints plucked from a catalogue. Using their own “sweat equity,” people would build the homes themselves.
Inuit know the northern conditions better than southern construction companies. Inuit can build. Give them the equipment and let them build homes themselves, was the thinking.
Nunatsiaq News put the idea back on Nunavut’s radar in 2023 with the publication of Our Home, an 8,000-word, four-part series researched and written by David Venn, then a Nunatsiaq reporter. That series lives in the Housing section under the Features button on our website.
A chance conversation with former MP Jack Anawak in 2022 about the old HAP program piqued Venn’s curiosity. It worked 40 years ago. Could it work now?
Venn spent the next year thumbing through old HAP documents. He waited out COVID-19 travel lockdowns until the time came when he could go to Naujaat and Rankin Inlet to see some of the original homes built under HAP and check out how well they had held up.
He said then that he saw the series as an example of solutions-based journalism — reporting that not only shines a light on a social problem like housing, but also constructively proposes a way to make it better.
A year after Our Home was published, the Government of Nunavut started talking about reviving HAP.
We don’t know exactly how influential that series was in reigniting the GN’s interest. But we’re confident that Our Home got noticed among GN and Nunavut Housing Corp. staff.
By April 2024, when the Nunavut Housing Corp. announced the “modernized” NHAP, it was using the term “HAP 2.0” to describe it.
Very often, journalism requires a trip through society’s doom and gloom. Crime. Tax hikes. COVID-19 lockdowns. Diesel fuel in the water supply.
But once in a while, there’s a chance to delve into a topic and explore how to make an idea work for the betterment of the community.
Nunatsiaq’s Our Home series earned recognition at regional and national newspaper awards, including a National Newspaper Award nomination, a Quebec Community Newspapers Association feature-writing award, and the first-ever Egbert Gaye Dare to Make a Difference Award, named after a Montreal advocate known for giving his community a voice, his advocacy and philanthropy.
If this article sounds like bragging, it is. It’s easy for the public to knock their local media. It’s not unique to the North. It happens everywhere. We get it. It comes with the territory.
But selfishly, when there’s a clear-cut case that demonstrates how the power of the press (to use an antiquated expression) can drive change, it’s worth reminding readers.
link
