Yellowknife — January 26, 2021
The Minister Responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation (NWTHC), Paulie Chinna, is expanding opportunities for NWT residents to pursue the goal of homeownership.
The Mandate of the 19th Legislative Assembly identified increasing the number of affordable homes and reducing core housing need as a key priority. One of the actions identified under this priority is to transition individuals or families to homeownership through the sale of units or lease-to-own agreements for existing housing units.
Under the leadership of Minister Chinna, the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation has doubled its efforts to achieve results in creating homeownership and will be stepping up its work to transition its inventory of detached public housing units into homes.
Through the new Lease-to-Own policy, the NWTHC will also support expanding homeownership through either the conversion of our homeownership rental portfolio into ownership, or through the sale of public housing.
The program will be available to all income earning families that are residing in a detached public housing unit and can afford the cost of operating and maintaining their own home. The Housing Corporation is reaching out to tenants to inform them of the opportunities provide them with an opportunity to transition to homeownership. Currently, the NWTHC is has seven units in the process of being sold in Behchokǫ̀.
Quote
“In order to assist NWT Residents in reaching their goals of homeownership, we must look for creative ways to address housing needs while to creating opportunities for residents to become homeowners where possible. I am excited that we are moving forward with this approach to support residents with successfully reaching their goals. The units will be in good condition and healthy and safe to occupy. New homeowners will have full access to the NWTHC’s repair programs, including access to building supplies and services from Local Housing Organizations in communities where they are not available.”
- Paulie Chinna, Minister Responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation and Addressing Homelessness
Quick facts
- Increasing the level of homeownership has been extremely difficult for several years due to significant construction costs and difficulty for residents to obtain bank financing.
- The NWTHC will convert its homeownership rental portfolio into ownership beginning in early 2021.
- This portfolio has 221 homes.
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Media Requests, please contact:
Cara Bryant
Communications Advisor
Northwest Territories Housing Corp.
867-767-9328