Nunavik housing crunch squeezes Inuit onto Montreal streets

Puvirnituk is gripped by a housing shortage that residents say fuels violence, substance abuse and death in the tiny Inuit village in Nunavik  — and is driving many to lives on the streets in Montreal.

Inuit in Puvirnituk are calling 2008 one of the worst years in the settlement's half-century history, with five suicides reported in the first five months alone.

Alcohol and drug abuse are prevalent, exacerbated by cramped quarters in the settlement near Quebec's northernmost tip.

More than one teenager a month commits suicide and families are cracking under the pressure of coping with scarce and crowded housing that affords only a couple hundred homes for some 1,500 inhabitants.

Many end up fleeing to Montreal with the hopes of finding better housing — only to end up living, and dying, on the streets.

Social services workers in Puvirnituk say they're frustrated with the province's response to the crisis but the government says it faces a daunting and expensive challenge to build more northern homes.

Bulk of homeless Aboriginals in Montreal are Inuit

Inuit from Nunavik make up more than 40 per cent of Montreal's Aboriginal homeless population, even though they make up only 10 per cent of the city's First Nations community, according to the Native Friendship Centre.

"I find there's a lot more [Inuit], compared to a couple years ago," said Pamela Shauk, who works for the Native Friendship Centre, at the corner of St-Laurent Boulevard and Ontario Street.

She sees "a lot more clients out," especially on the streets around the Old Forum, a Montreal landmark. "I guess they get kicked out from their apartments."

Or some never find apartments and end up adopting the streets — like Paulisi, who has been homeless in Montreal on and off for more than a decade.

"I can't go home [to the North] because there's no housing up there for me," he said recently. "The only house I got there [has] people that drink. I can't go home, so I'm stuck down here," he said.

Homeless Inuit flock together to panhandle, drink and sleep, but it's a punishing lifestyle, said Elsie Adams, 51, who lived on Montreal's streets for years.

"It used to be hard to be down there. But we knew how to survive, to sleep outside. We were helping each other, that's how we were surviving." Ultimately life on the streets kills, and she's mourned many friends, Adams said.

"They're dying from sickness, or froze to death outside in Montreal. They're all my friends."

Adams has since returned to Puvirnituk, where she is homeless — but at least she says, she's still alive.

Crowded houses the norm in Puvirnituk

In Puvirnituk, most of the 200 or so homes in the community are packed with people who play a tense game of musical chairs with available couches, beds and floors.

"Overcrowding is a major problem here. In a three-bedroom, you can find 14-20 people," explains Sarah Surusila, an emergency intervener with the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau. "Even me, I had to live in a house where it's very crowded.

"My brother had to sleep in the washroom, my other nephew had to sleep in the hallway. My sister came and took my room with her baby — and my brother, he's an adult, he has a girlfriend, so needs his own room."

"We had to fight for the couches. Whoever who goes to sleep first will get the best spot. That's how it is."

Surusila now lives with her boyfriend, a police officer with his own house. But most of her neighbours aren't as fortunate — and the Quebec government plays a huge role.

"We're living up north, I understand that we're in an isolated area, and my feeling always comes to 'we're being forgotten. If I go [down south], I'll get an apartment in two days.' Here, I have to wait for 10 years."

The Quebec government knows there's a problem, said Russell Copeman, provincial parliamentary assistant to the Health and Social Services Minister.

"We're very aware that there's an acute housing shortage in Nunavik. It's one of the fastest growing regions in the province, it has a very high birth rate. [And that] puts tremendous pressure on housing," he said recently during a visit to Puvirnituk.

The province is adding some housing every year but Copeman admits it's a "huge challenge."

"Almost 99 per cent of these house are municipally-owned houses, so it's the equivalent of social housing in the south. Costs are prohibitive! If you have to pay $5,000 to heat, and $5,000 to get your municipal services, you know, you're beginning from a cost of $10,000 per unit before you've done anything else."

"It's a huge challenge, one that we're trying to work out, not as quickly as the community needs, and not as quickly as the community would appreciate."

Regional organizations that work in housing have a role to play, and so do the Inuit, he added.

Surusila says she and others understand how crucial appropriate housing is to fostering a healthy community. "It would help a lot of the families, I think it would reduce the violence a lot."