They have had enough. Frustrated renters say the housing market in Squamish is at a tipping point and they are banding together to do something about it.
Local doula Amber Gould recently took to a Squamish housing Facebook page to vent her own frustration at being unable to find an affordable and suitable rental and asked others to share their stories. She was inundated with stories of people in her situation or worse, she said.
“Many people in our age group, early 30s, are in the same position,” she said. “A lot of us are working in some kind of service industry job and this is the situation for many of my friends and my professional friends.”
Gould works several jobs, but said she has found it impossible to find an affordable rental now that she and her partner have outgrown their current room in a house. In 2012 she rented a three-bedroom place for about $900 a month and now similar-sized units are advertised at upwards of $1,900 a month.
Gould said the lack of affordable housing is causing a change in social equity in Squamish, turning it into a place where only the wealthier classes can make a home.
“People are feeling disenfranchised and they’re feeling as if because they’re in a certain socio-economic bracket they are no longer qualified to live in Squamish,” she said.
Valuable members of the community are struggling to stay in the district, she said.
Hayley Read, 31, was raised in Squamish and teaches children piano full time out of her home. She currently has a place to live and work, but the owners have put the unit up for sale.
“In any community I think it is going to be a challenge to find a place that is suitable for teaching. There are the noise concerns and the coming and going,” she said.
“In Squamish, with there being hardly any options for anyone my chances are even tougher.”
Read said she fears if she can’t find something when her landlords sell, she’ll have to give up teaching her 45 students and abandon her growing waitlist of children who also want lessons.
“[Teaching] is definitely something that adds value to the community,” she said.
Jennifer Petri and her husband Ben Gaitskell, who is manager and chef at the Naked Lunch eatery in downtown Squamish, are thinking it may be time to leave.
Though Gaitskell grew up in Squamish and loves his job, Petri said with three children and two pets, finding suitable housing has been an exercise in frustration.
“It’s next to impossible.”
The family is currently living in a one bedroom and den condo for $1,350 a month, but their landlords are selling the unit.
The family is looking at moving to Penticton, where they lived previously and where a five-bedroom house rents for $1,500 a month, she said.
Gould said her anger and sadness over the stories she has been hearing led her to organize a Squamish Tenants’ Association.
The group has its own Facebook page, started June 21, that already has over 100 members.
The association will seek solutions, provide information on tenants’ rights and advocate on behalf of renters, among other things, Gould said.
She has been in contact with the district and arrangements are being made for her and other group members to present to the district’s housing task force in July.
Councillor Jason Blackman-Wulff, chair of the task force, said he looks forward to hearing what the members of the group have to say and what creative solutions they may bring to the table.
He said one of the problems is that because there is no longer a long-form census in Canada, it is hard for local governments and developers to get a sense of what the need is.
“I’m hoping that we will be able to start collecting some data from the tenants’ association as they are talking to people in the community and finding out what are some of the challenges for people,” he said. “One of the biggest things we can do is ensure that there is a good supply out there. Whenever you have really, really low vacancy rates that is when you start to have issues, so we need to make sure as a district that we have control over land use decisions and rezoning and things of that nature to make sure that the supply is coming on and make sure that the supply is going to meet people’s needs.”
Gould said she is hopeful solutions can be found through collaboration.
This story has been modified since it was first posted.
