Homeownership Program History

Housing NWT has a long history of promoting home ownership and assisting families who wish to own their own homes. In 1977 the NWTHC completed a Task Force on Home Ownership, resulting in the implementation of the Rural & Remote Housing program, a subsidy that assisted lower-income families in buying or building modestly priced homes, through a subsidized mortgage. The Rural and Remote Housing program was one of the Corporation’s first homeownership programs; the program ran for a decade, before being discontinued in 1988. By 1988 the NWTHC was responsible for a portfolio of 72 units under the Rural and Remote Housing Program.

One of the territory’s most popular homeownership programs was the Homeownership Assistance Program (HAP), which was introduced in 1975 as the Country Home Assistance Grant. Initially, the Country Home Assistance Grant offered $5,000 to construct homes from locally harvested materials in communities without public housing. The size of the grant gradually increased over time, to $30,000 in 1982, when it was renamed to the HAP.

From 1984 to 1992-93, the HAP was accessed by over 1400 families. Over time, the design of HAP houses evolved to better suit the needs of NWT residents, making units easier and less expensive to build and operate. The HAP was discontinued at the end of the 1992-93 fiscal year. In 1993-94 new Homeownership Programs replaced HAP. These new programs were meant to reach a broader range of potential homeowners, with the last few years of HAP seeing a decline in applications because most of those eligible had already been served by the program. In the first year of the new homeownership programs, 1187 applications were completed by the district offices, with a total of 176 Homeownership units delivered in 1993-94.

Housing NWT has also offered home repair programs for several decades. In the late 1980s, Housing NWT introduced the home repair program to assist homeowners to ensure their homes meet safety and health standards, with funding being offered through both a repayable and forgivable loan.

Housing NWT has continued with a wide array of homeownership programs. In 2002- 2003, Housing NWT created the Affordable Housing Strategy, which included an expansion of the Homeownership and Down payment Assistance Programs. From 2006 to 2009, under the Affordable Housing Initiative, Housing NWT built 190 homes as part of the Homeownership Entry Level Program (HELP) and 386 NWT homeowners received funding through the Contributing Assistance for Repairs and Enhancements (CARE) program to repair, upgrade and perform preventative maintenance on their home.

Housing NWT has recently amended its homeownership programs to provide an opportunity for NWT residents to access government support through programming for the purchase of a modest private home, repair their homes to ensure a safe and healthy residence and increase the useful economic life of their homes, or access a rental program that allows them to experience the commitments required to be a successful homeowner. The new simplified structure of the homeownership programs offers more flexible delivery options to NWT residents.