Iqaluit, Nunavut (May 26, 2025) – Nunavut Housing Corporation (NHC) reaffirms its commitment to improved housing services and expanding the available pool of housing for Nunavummiut following a recent performance audit.

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG) conducted a performance audit in 2024 to evaluate how NHC managed housing services and public housing inventory between April 2022 and December 2024.

The report makes 10 recommendations for NHC moving forward. NHC has responded to the findings and recommendations in the report by proposing the following activities:

• Review the points rating system used to prioritize public housing allocations and improve the system and process for rating public housing applications.

• Increase support for and oversight of the Local Housing Organizations (LHO) allocation of public housing units to ensure they are consistent with government legislation, policies, processes and the management agreements between each LHO and NHC.

• Develop guidance for LHOs to use in balancing transfer requests from existing tenants against new tenant applications to improve equitable allocation of housing units.

• Implement a standardized approach to collecting, managing and analyzing waitlist data across all communities to ensure equity in public housing unit allocation and inform public housing development.

• Conduct a needs analysis of Elders and people with disabilities, including existing tenants, waitlisted applicants and new applicants, identify all units with accessibility features, improve the process for allocating these units and improve oversight of accessible and barrier-free public housing unit allocations.

• Document the features of all accessible and barrier-free public housing units within NHC’s inventory to support equitable allocation of public housing units with these features.

Improve management and analysis of public housing assets through better information management, including consolidating and integrating housing data, tracking condition ratings, accessibility, maintenance activities, leasing data and property values.

• Continue to work with LHOs to meet their obligations under their management agreements, including submitting annual plans and semi-annual progress reports.

• Ensure public housing units are maintained by improving the way preventative maintenance in public housing units is monitored and documented, including unit condition inspections, mould, and heat recovery ventilators.

• Continue to improve on the clarity and consistency of progress reporting for Nunavut 3000 by releasing the number of housing units completed or under construction since the start of the 6th Assembly in November 2021 using third-party data from the Office of the Chief Building Official (OCBO).

NHC is also in the process of implementing two enterprise information technology systems to support these improvements, including an asset planner to manage the lifecycles of NHC’s public housing inventory and property management software to improve the administration of public housing for existing and future tenants.

“The Auditor General’s findings and recommendations validate our plans to improve how NHC provides equitable access to suitable public housing for families and individuals in Nunavut,” said the Minister responsible for NHC, Lorne Kusugak. “When our government developed the Katujjiluta Mandate in December 2021, we recognized the pressing need to improve housing conditions for Nunavummiut. We thank the Auditor General for sharing our interest in better housing for our people and for her recommendations, which support our vision for Nunavut’s housing continuum.”

These proposed actions will be finalized by NHC and will be included in an official Action Plan in Fall 2025, when it will be released on the NHC website.