Nunavut's first comprehensive survey of its housing needs begins this month in all communities, with the goal of giving officials an accurate picture of the territory's shortage.

The Nunavut Housing Corp. is collaborating with Statistics Canada and the Nunavut Bureau of Statistics on the project, in which they're aiming to survey at least 85 per cent of people in the territory.

Surveyors will talk to homeowners, renters and public housing tenants about their housing needs, said Patsy Owlijoot, the housing corporation's vice-president of operations.

"Our public housing waiting list consists of over 1,500 families who require houses, their own homes," Owlijoot said Tuesday.

"We also know that there's a lot of hidden homeless out there who sleep with their relatives, because you can't sleep outside in Nunavut or you'll freeze to death right away."

Twenty-five senior surveyors are being hired and trained for the project. They will hire a total of about 40 local researchers to assist them in each community.

Owlijoot said surveyors will go door to door with a questionnaire that should take 30 minutes to complete.

They will seek specific details from households about issues such as overcrowding: "How many people are sharing a single house and ... which of the people sleep in living rooms or in the laundry room or whatever," Owlijoot said.

"We need to know exactly what the situation is in across Nunavut."

Hunter Tootoo, the minister responsible for the Nunavut Housing Corp., said officials need that type of information to help make a case for more federal housing money.

"Once we get this information together, we're hoping to be able to identify, clearly identify our need, [and] try and secure some type of continuation of funding for housing in the North over a longer period of time," he said.

Tootoo said the federal government provided a stimulus housing package, but that money is running out.

While Tootoo said he was pleased to see more than 140 people applied for the senior surveyor positions, he said the most important thing is for the public to take part in the survey when it comes to their communities.