A new report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says housing is still tough to come by across northern Canada, and Igloolik is no exception.
The 2026 Northern Housing Report found that while demand has cooled slightly, a lack of supply and high building costs keep homes scarce and expensive. In 2015, CBC News reported that 102 households in Igloolik were on the public housing waitlist as of that January, with about 70 per cent of the hamlet living in just 267 public units. More recent community-level data for Igloolik was not available in the CMHC report.
Across Nunavut, the situation is even more stark. Social housing made up 93 per cent of new residential construction investment last year, compared to only 6 per cent nationally. The territory’s public housing waitlist grew from 3,348 applicants in March 2025 to 3,713 by the end of March 2026.
Nunavut’s public housing system is under serious strain. More than 60 per cent of Nunavummiut rely on it, and 45 per cent of those units are overcrowded. The Nunavut Housing Corporation manages nearly 6,000 units across 25 communities, but almost 1,900 were built over 40 years ago and need replacing.
There is some relief on the horizon for Igloolik. The Qikiqtani Inuit Association announced in March it will build nine affordable homes for Inuit in the community, with construction starting this year and finishing by 2028.
But the overall outlook is daunting. Construction costs run about 30 to 50 per cent higher than in Calgary, and the territory’s ambitious Nunavut 3000 Strategy, which aims to build 3,000 homes by 2030, has only completed 313 public units since 2022. CMHC Deputy Chief Economist Aled ab Iorwerth said affordability has improved a bit, but ‘there is still a long-term structural challenge, and that’s across the territories.’
