Bow Valley housing helpers offer discount rooms, online advice

The scarcity of affordable housing in Canmore and Banff leaves many renters vulnerable to scams, bad landlords, overpriced rent and overcrowding — but luckily some kind-hearted souls are stepping in to help out.

After seven years of hosting international high-school students in her home in Canmore, Sheran Pavey decided she needed to do something about the crisis.

• PART 3 | Average house price of $998,000 part of Canmore's housing 'crisis'
• PART 2 | Banff businesses face unique challenges to stay afloat
• PART 1 | Banff may be a mountain paradise — but housing crisis more 'dire' than ever

"We were seeing more and more how difficult it was for the young people who live here, young Canadians and also young people from other countries who come here to work and live."

Pavey decided to give up the more lucrative international student route and instead rent two rooms in the townhouse she shares with her husband and their two dogs to young workers in Canmore.

Many of them can't find a suitable home on a $15 an hour salary — if they're lucky enough to make that much. So Pavey decided to fix her rooms at $20 per night or $600 per month, a high price for one room but still less than what is on the market.

"I know that we are the extreme and it doesn't make good business sense, but we're not renting our rooms as a business," Pavey said. "To me, it is providing a community service by providing a home for two young people who couldn't find a place to live."

To pick tenants, she looks at posts from renters on the Bow Valley Home Finder Facebook group, a page created to link local landlords and those looking for a home.

That's how she found her first tenant, Leah Roberts, who was looking for a place under $800 without sharing with eight other people or outside the town limits, since she doesn't own a car.

Roberts said she came across a lot of "very ridiculous posts" when searching online.

"I don't think that it's right if you're charging someone $1,500 a month, to live in someone else's house.... You can get a two-bedroom apartment for that much in Calgary."

Pavey hopes others will follow her lead and open their homes for a reasonable price. She suggests laying the rules first to avoid any problems and do a trial of three to six months to begin.

"Give it a go. If you do have a couple of rooms that are free, try having someone in your home. When you bring young people into your life, it enriches your life as well."

Web tool

The web has become a great tool to find housing anywhere. The Bow Valley isn't different: renters and landlords use sites like Kijiji, Rentfaster or Craigslist to communicate.

But when you're outside the valley looking for an apartment, it can be hard to understand the overall housing situation, assess a fair price for rent or know what information landlords are allowed to request.

That's why Mitch Hamilton and others created Bow Valley Housing Crisis, a peer-support FaceBook page.

"Being able to be available for questioning when people receive eviction notices wrongfully, when they are being told that their rent will be increased on a short notice: Those are situations that people need to be aware of and know that they can't just simply happen. So we make the page available to people as a resource so that they know they're not alone."

Since the page opened, people have come to it with a variety of issues, Hamilton says — landlords asking $1,500 for a single room in a shared house, houses with 12,15 or 17 people living in them, rent increase of 200 per cent with less than 90 days notice. 

And Hamilton says the housing crisis can exacerbate social issues such as domestic abuse.

"Someone ... who isn't in a comfortable situation in their own home but wants to get out of this situation: there just isn't an option for them to be able to find their own residence separately. These are things that I find unacceptable."

Mechanisms exist to file official complaints against a landlord or report unsuitable housing but many never take that step out of fear they will lose their accommodation and won't be able to find another place.

Despite many stories alleged in social media or brought to community groups, only one housing safety case has been brought to court since 2008 in Banff.

Hamilton says that has to change if the housing situation is to improve.

"Unless the people are sharing the negative stories and that people are being up front and honest with their landlord and the owners of their property, unless people are held accountable for doing things that are absolutely unacceptable in terms of the tenancy act, I don't see this situation getting any better," said Hamilton.

He hopes his page will help create an environment where people feel safe to speak out so the problems can be identified and situations resolved through education.