Having been forced away for six years, Lake St. Martin families are finally starting to return home.

Twelve families were given keys to their new homes yesterday. In 2011, the community and surrounding area was evacuated due to severe flooding. As of August 1, 2017, there are still more than 1,200 evacuees from Lake St. Martin, and hundreds more from nearby communities.

But yesterday marked the beginning of coming home. Alex Traverse got his keys yesterday, and says he will be moving in slowly over the next couple weeks, with his family. He actually left the reserve about a year before the flooding.

"I never really had my own house because there wasn't enough housing on the old reserve."

Traverse says because of that he was able to establish himself in Winnipeg and never had to experience what some of the others did, like living in a hotel. Regardless, Traverse has come back to the community, and now serves as the water plant operator. He says returning home is surreal.

"I'm pretty optimistic about how it's going to be. Definitely it'll be something new. We're always going to have a continued supply of water, we're not going to have to wait for the water like we used to."

Traverse says he's heard from other community members that things won't be the same.

"Back on the old reserve we had more space and houses were farther apart. People actually had, I guess you could say, a bit of privacy... You couldn't yell to the next person from your house, but now in this new set up, we're going to be able to -- maybe that's not a bad thing."

Lake St. Martin has been moved a few kilometres west of the old, flood-ravaged reserve and Traverse says he's been seeing proper precautions being taken, like building bigger ditches; he doesn't expect there will be flooding problems in the future.

Traverse says the displacement affected people in different ways. More than 100 community members have died since the evacuation in 2011.

"Families that left are not coming back as a whole family anymore, they're all missing pieces of the family right now. I think mostly that was the biggest effect on everybody was losing family members during the displacement."

The First Nation says on its Facebook page 150 homes are to be completed by the end of November. A joint news release from the provincial and federal governments says up to 190 homes will be ready for occupation by the end of January 2018. The cost of the housing project is being split by the two governments 50/50. It represents a $49.5-million investment. The Government of Canada is also providing $19.7-million for the construction of a new school; it's expected to be complete by next September.