Each and every day tales are being told around town about the availability of housing in Powell River, affordable or not.
Families are living with other families. People who cannot find a way into a rental market or afford to buy a home are telling stories of bidding wars with winners offering cash thousands of dollars above the asking price, and with no subjects attached.
Some are improvising and moving into a mobile trailer temporarily while saving money and waiting to buy, or finding the smaller-living lifestyle so appealing they make the move permanent.
New to Powell River, the Ventilly family, including Frances, Matt and their two young children, have been living the fifth-wheel life at Willingdon Beach.
The Ventillys ended up in Powell River by way of a long story, said Frances, after “living life” for eight months on a sailboat in the Caribbean and five months in a caravan around Europe.
“We've lived in a floating house for a long time,” said Frances. “I'm ready for solid ground.”
While they looked for a house, the Ventillys found a temporary solution to the Powell River housing headache by moving into a fifth-wheel trailer; its quarters are no more cramped than a 39-foot boat.
“Technically, we're in the campground at Willingdon Beach,” said Frances. “We're in a fifth wheel, and that's sort of been our tentative plan while waiting for housing. We just didn't bother trying to compete with the rental market because it's kind of crazy.”
The family’s wait only lasted a month and a half. They arrived on Valentine's Day and it will not be long before they move out of their trailer and into a house.
“We just removed our subjects on the home we bought, so we'll be here for another month or two until we get possession and then we have ourselves a tiny, little house,” said Frances.
The family would not have been able to continue living at Willingdon after April 30.
In June 2017, City of Powell River passed a bylaw effectively ending extended stays in the campsite, with the exception of about 12 of the 80 sites, which were grandfathered in before the bylaw took effect.
“After the bylaw was passed everybody who went there through the winter was notified as they signed up that there are no extended stays anymore after April 30,” said city director of parks, recreation and culture Ray Boogaards.
Willingdon Beach is a campsite for tourists and it was never intended to be an option for housing, according to Boogaards.
“We shouldn't be putting them in campgrounds,” he said. “We should be providing housing for them.”
The Ventilly family “lucked out,” said Frances, and they were prepared to stay at Willingdon Beach until summer.
“There's some people in the campground who do live full time in their fifth wheels or trailers and that was never our intention,” said Frances. “The more we talked to people they said, ‘Get comfortable in here because you're never going to find a house within the year,’ and we were sort of freaking out.’
