The tents which have sprung up on the lawn of the Yukon legislature this week have enflamed an already heated housing debate in Whitehorse, prompting opposition MLAs to demand immediate action on what can only be described as a housing crisis in the territory's capital.

On Wednesday afternoon, two women who have been struggling to find housing – one of whom has been living at Robert Service Campground and another who just lost her apartment in Granger – set up camp in front of the main YTG building to protest the lack of affordable housing in the city.

They are just two of 149 people in Whitehorse on the Yukon Housing Corp.'s wait list, the longest ever according to policy director JoAnne Harach.

Less than a third of those people, however, can expect to have a place to call home by the end of this summer.

Over a third of them are seniors, Harach said. More than half of the people on the list are categorized as "homeless”, meaning they are living on the streets, couch surfing, tenting or living in a hotel room.

"Victims of violence are our first priority,” Harach said today.

"Second priority is medical relocates – people coming in from the communities for medical treatment who have nowhere to live in Whitehorse – and third priority is homeless people.”

About 50 people on the list should be housed "within two months,” Harach told the Star today, as seniors move from their current housing to the new 30-unit seniors' complex being built on the waterfront.

A handful of Yukon Housing's 372 Whitehorse units that are currently being fixed up will also be open by the end of August, she said, but some vacant units will remain so because they need "major rehabs”.

"Contracts are in place and work is happening, but not in all of them because it's a pretty tight contracting market right now,” she explained.

Harach was the only housing or Department of Health and Social Services representative to get back to the Star this week after numerous requests for comment on what is shaping up to be the worst housing crunch the capital has ever seen.

Speaking with the Star this morning, NDP housing critic Steve Cardiff and Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell both slammed the government for not acting more quickly to ease the crunch.

Both made reference to $18 million in federal housing money sitting in reserve, which outgoing Premier Dennis Fentie said was last week is being saved for a "bona fide, approved project.”

"Is Dennis Fentie telling me that in five years, he nor Mr. (Glenn) Hart (Minster of Health and Social Services) nor Mr. (Jim) Kenyon (former minister in charge of housing) has been able to think of anything to do?” Mitchell said today.

"They are supposed to be the ideas people. If they still haven't got anything, then they should get out of the way.”

He pointed to housing proposals put forward by Challenge, a group which advocates for people with disabilities and the Northern City Supportive Housing Coalition.

Rick Goodfellow, who heads Challenge, is not so pessimistic about the government's commitment to the housing problem, however.

"There certainly is a political will,” he said today. "... Both (deputy minister Stuart) Whitley and Hart came to us and said, ‘We have a problem.'

"Everyone thought we knew what we were dealing with here, and that it was manageable and then we did the social inclusion and housing adequacy reports (released last December) and we all realized that no, we don't have a handle on it.

"I'm very enthused about the fact they are not just ignoring it. I lived in Alberta, where the government did ignore it and said, ‘Well, if they want to live on the street, that's their choice.

"That's not what I'm hearing here.”

Challenge is in the final stages of producing its proposal for a 24- or 36-unit (depending on zoning) supported living complex, which would also house the group's offices and a storefront where residents could gain work experience.

"It's shovel-ready. We own the property, we don't need to secure anything, we can simply build and it can be done in a year,” Goodfellow said.

The project is estimated to cost $7.5 million, with operational funding coming from the existing Health and Social Services budget "because these folks are already farmed out all over the place,” Goodfellow added.

Cardiff said he only hopes the government does not insist on more studies or debates.

"We've studied this issue to death,” he said. "The Yukon Party brought a debate about an emergency shelter last October, yet there's been no movement on it.”

And the problem doesn't end with simply putting up more houses.

"We need to have legislation that protects both the landlord and the tenant, so housing meets the basic health and safety requirements and are affordable. That's another thing we've studied to death.”