Gjoa Haven looks to tiny homes to solve housing crisis

It's quiet in Helen Kaloon's home in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut.

Only three of the eight people who share the two-bedroom public housing unit are at home.

Her son-in-law is sitting on the bed in the room that he shares with Kaloon's daughter and their seven-year-old daughter. Kaloon's 17-year-old daughter is asleep on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom she shares with her parents.

"The kids must have gone visiting," Kaloon said, referring to her three grandchildren.

It's after school and they haven't arrived home yet. Her husband, Allen, is out checking his fishing nets at a nearby lake.

Kaloon and her husband sold their house last year, after it became too expensive to heat and power. They moved into their daughter's public housing unit.

She says her youngest daughter misses having her own room.

"It gets stressful 'cause it's just a two-bedroom and it's crowded," she said.

Kaloon says sometimes her son and another daughter and her kids come to stay too.

"[It] makes me sad," said Kaloon, thinking of her grandchildren, especially her 14-year-old grandson. He sleeps on a mattress in the living room. Her eight-year-old granddaughter sleeps on the couch.

"He needs his own space too. He needs his own room. He goes and visits his friends and probably his friends have their own room and he's never really had his own room."

Space is at a premium in the small unit. Kaloon says parkas get piled up on the floor and the family has built two shacks out back for storage. There's only one bathroom.

"Some of us may be sick or need to use the washroom right away," said Kaloon.

"There's a lot of us here and if we get the flu and you need to use the washroom, that's the worst part. We have to wait for whoever's in the washroom to be done."

Housing crisis

Kaloon's story is not uncommon in Gjoa Haven. According to the Nunavut Housing Corporation's 2016-17 annual report, the community is the third-most in need of housing.

Families moved into five new units this past summer, and 10 more are slated for construction next year.

Gjoa Haven, with a population of 1,324, is on King William Island in the central Arctic. It's better known as the final resting place of Sir John Franklin's ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, not as the face of Nunavut's housing crisis.

Overcrowding is often pointed out as a root cause of the territory's health and social problems.

In 2013, the coroner's jury at the Nunavut suicide inquest heard about Antonio "Rex" Uttak, who took his own life just weeks after his 11th birthday. At the time, his family was waiting for public housing in Naujaat and living with as many as 24 family members in a four-bedroom unit.

A Senate committee report earlier this year found that Inuit "face an acute housing crisis which threatens their health and safety." The report also connected "overcrowding to an increased risk of domestic and sexual violence."

A unique solution

The Kikitak Housing Association thinks it has a solution to Gjoa Haven's housing shortage — tiny homes.

Mike Cousineau is the housing association's maintenance manager. Originally from Victoria, B.C., Cousineau arrived in Gjoa Haven about a year ago and almost immediately started working on a plan.

"When you have people that you work with day to day that are suffering because of the housing shortage, you know, it's in your face — you see it, you see the impact," said Cousineau.

"I see the reaction of people that are stressed and in emotional distress mainly because of the housing shortage, so I came up with that idea fairly quickly."

Cousineau calls the project the "Iglu House Solution." He wants to see it led by Inuit, but he's happy to lend his expertise for now.

His design has homes ranging in size from 400 square feet to just under 1,000 square feet, depending on whether there are bedrooms on a second floor.

The tiny homes could be used by families, but also elders or bachelors who may not need as much space.

Although small, the homes would have a kitchen, laundry, three-piece bathroom, living room, dining area and either one or two bedrooms.

The housing association would build "villages" of up to eight tiny homes, all serviced by one maintenance shed for water and sewer delivery, Cousineau says.

Unlike the tiny homes in the south that might move from place to place on a trailer, these homes would sit on a gravel pad.

Cousineau says tiny homes could be built faster and cheaper than the five-plex public housing units currently being constructed by the Nunavut Housing Corp.

He says it could take a month and cost $100,000 to build a tiny home, compared to $2 million and a year and a half to build a five-plex.

The plan is to build tiny homes using four-feet-by-10-feet structural insulated panels made in Gjoa Haven.

The panels would have metal siding on the outside and finished birch plywood on the inside, which would help cut down on construction time by eliminating the need to put up drywall.

Cousineau says "the technical challenges aren't overwhelming." A mould is used to make the panels and they only take 15 minutes to cure.

"We have room on our property to erect a fairly light structure or easily build a structure to work [to build the panels inside]," said Cousineau.

"We would make panels on a production cycle and then store them," he said. "Once we had enough panels then we would erect the house."

'Make more room'

Part of the plan is to train local labourers to build the panels. Cousineau hopes to employ 20 to 40 people.

Travis Oogak is already employed by the housing association. He's worked as a casual for the past two months on a 500-square-foot protoype. Construction started this summer using leftover building materials from past housing projects.

"They would help the community," Oogak said of the tiny home idea.

Oogak says people would be "happier" and the houses would "make more room."

The homes could either be added to the public housing stock or provide a low-cost option for people looking to own their own home, says Cousineau.

The prototype is expected to be completed this winter. Then, Cousineau hopes to invite the community on a tour, "basically to demonstrate to the community that shape, the amount of living space, the functionality of the home."

Eventually, his dream is to build structural insulated panels that can be shipped as kits to other communities.

"Ultimately, what we'd like to see is Gjoa Haven to become a community that produces and manufactures these tiny homes to be shipped throughout Nunavut," he said.