It is no secret that an unprecedented transformation is underway in Squamish. And what is becoming all too apparent is that some folks are capitalizing on the rapid growth washing over this community, while others are being left on the fringes.
We’ve taken our place in the pantheon of Solar Cities dedicated to fighting climate change. We’ve painted our crosswalks in rainbow hues to underscore our inclusiveness. We’re enticing record numbers of visitors and commercial ventures of every description. CNN Money named Squamish “The Best Mountain Town To Visit In 2014” while the New York Times listed it as one of the best places to travel to in 2015. Our official tagline says we’re “Hardwired for Adventure.”
Unofficially, life in this community spells hard times for many individuals and families. In a recent email exchange, Maureen Mackell, the executive director of the Squamish Helping Hands Society, said the increasing number of residents accessing services provided by her organization “speaks to the volume of people who are struggling to make ends meet, whose housing is either non-existent or precarious and often unsafe.” In 2015 her team delivered 13,000 Food4Kids lunches to school children, packed 1500 Food4Families grocery hampers and saw 4,508 emergency shelter stays.
Squamish has a critical scarcity of daycare facilities and each available space can cost between $1,100 and $1,250 a month. Kelly (Staples) Humphrey, a mother of two young daughters, recently told The Chief although new families are arriving in waves, “we are not providing these young people with the services they need to survive here.”
Despite the social strains, people are busting the doors down to get a piece of the local real estate pie. Last November in a span of just 90 minutes the 65-unit Park House condo development was completely sold out. So far this year about 37 per cent of the sales at Royal LePage Black Tusk Realty have been to buyers from the Lower Mainland.
At the same time, we are witnessing a growing exodus of young, disenchanted residents. Shaneen Alana Smith and her husband were both born in Squamish but the couple decided to pull up stakes and like many others they’ve taken to social media to express their discontent. “We refuse to live in the ‘new Vancouver’ so we’re leaving,” she told readers of The Chief’s Facebook page.
Concerned Squamish resident Megan Leverette Joseph posted the following query on Facebook: “How are all these new businesses going to have staff if there is no affordable housing? If families making good money live hand to mouth what is to become of this amazing place? Perhaps it will become another playground for the elite?”
