This N.W.T. man's furnace blows mould and dust through his home. He's tried for 23 years to get it fixed

This is part four of a series on the housing crisis in the Northwest Territories.

Michael Black puts a thinlayer of plastic wrap on his children's food between bites, to protect them from swallowing particles of mould and dust.

Black said their furnace sucks in particles of both from below their house through a vent, then circulates it through their house.

"We don't breathe good," Blacktold CBC. "Our noses get bloody, our eyes get sore.

We don't know what's going on, we're scared you know."

Black said he's been trying to bring his housing issues to the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, the N.W.T. Housing Corporation, and his MLAs, for the last two decades. With no avail.

He's speaking out now because he doesn't know where to turn.

'They want to live here'

For the last 23years, the Black family livesin a small, bright orange house on a hill in N'Dilo, N.W.T. It's the place where Black and his wife raised eight kids together.

The dust problem existed when they first moved in, but Black said there were no other options for his growing family, aside from leaving the community.

"I wanted to [move], but my kids want to live here," he said. "They're from Treaty 8, they're from here, so they want to live here."

Evidence of the dust is everywhere.

Stains cover some of Black's book shelves, cake the ceiling in his laundry room, and piles of it hide in nooks and crannies where his children love to play. He doesn't know how much it will cost to repair, because the initial inspection just hasn't happened.

"[The dust] is sticking to the wall, sticking to the furniture," he said. "Everything that we have here, dust got into it."

The only way Black can take a look at what is coming through his furnace is by crawling through a 2x12 foot opening on the left side of his house, loosely covered with planks of plywood siding and plastic.

The space under his house gets flooded every spring, bringing more water inside the dark space so more mould can grow. The water also weakens the beams of plywood holding up the floors. As a result, the tiles start to split, and the floor sinks inward.

"I've talked to everybody in Yellowknife to confront them, who can I talk to?" he said. "Nobody, nobody phones me. Nothing."

CBCaskedJ&R Mechanical to do an inspection of Black's furnace problems. CBC offered to pay the contractor for the inspection, but it declined payment. A report from J&R Mechanical confirms that the combustion air from the furnace is coming from the crawlspace under his home, which "smells musty."

The contractor also found that the furnace's ductwork is not properly sealed, which is forcing air back into combustion. That can lead to low air quality inside a home, and a strain on the furnace operating system.

N.W.T. Housing does 'semi-annual' inspectionof 2,600 units

The N.W.T. Housing Corporation wouldn't comment on Black's specific case for privacy reasons.

In a statement, the department says they do "semi-annual" inspections of their 2,600 units across the territory with the help of local housing organizations.

These studies, the statement says, gives the department "useful evidence-based information" that helps the department figure out how to plan and spend their money.

Part of the inspection is to make sure every unit is "operating in a safe condition." If one of their units is in need of repair, the department says they send certified tradespeople to do them.

The most common repairs the department gets are for heating and plumbing issues.

One in five homes in the territory needs at least one major repair, the department stated. In the last decade, they've completed over 6,000 repairsacross the territory, adding up to $53 million.

Eighteen people on waitlist for housing in N'Dilo

N'Dilo, with a population of 296, doesn't have other housing units for his family, Black said. He's looked around, and hasn't found another place to move them.

The Yellowknives Dene First Nation oversees housing in N'Dilo and Detah. There are 18 applicants on the waitlist for public housing in N'Dilo, according to their April public housing newsletter.

The First Nation declined to comment for this story.

They are currently working on a community housing survey to identify more specific housing needs in their communities, which will be released in the near future.

Black said there needs to be something in place to help tenants like him, so they can get their repairs resolved instead of continuously fighting the system.

"We've got to do something to get support," he said. "You can't do this by yourself, just one person, for 23 years."