By ERIC MARCH
Adherence to the status quo is hugely problematic for a significant portion of Salt Spring Island’s population, and vilifying those who hope for more equitable housing solutions as “seeking urban amenities and growth” or wanting big box stores, bigger apartment buildings and fast food chains is unhelpful and dehumanizing.
One-third of Salt Springers live in some sort of housing need. Some have tried to discredit or minimize this statistic, but it comes from the Southern Gulf Islands Tourism Partnership’s Short-Term Rental Impact Report released in mid-September 2025, using housing data from the 2021 census. It states: “We recommend interpreting the available data as suggesting that there is something closer to ~1,695 households currently living in unaffordable, unsuitable and/or inadequate housing, and for whom there is currently no realistic alternative (until rental vacancy rates improve).” This statistic is discussed on pages 28, 29 and 30 of the report.
It defines affordable housing as costing less than 30 per cent of before-tax household income, adequate housing as not being in need of major repairs, and suitable as having enough bedrooms. These are not households that “simply need a roof repair” as was suggested to me recently. These are households who are having to make unreasonable sacrifices to afford rent or mortgage payments. These are families where children are not able to have their own bedrooms. These are retirees and working folks trying to make a home in buildings with severe and potentially dangerous structural defects.
For some this may be academic or abstract. There are plenty of people on this island privileged enough to only encounter folks in housing need on the other side of a till, waiting their table, waving their car onto a ferry or any of the other impersonal proletarian encounters one may have in a day.
But I have been a member of that third. I know numerous people in that third. While there has always been nonconforming housing on our nonconformist islands, forcing much of our working class into it as their only choice is a new phenomenon. Approximately 3,729 people are struggling with housing, valuable and beloved members of our community, hard-working members of our community, seniors who have contributed to our community and deserve a secure retirement.
Brazilian environmentalist Chico Mendes famously stated that “Environmentalism without class struggle is just gardening.” I think this is an incredibly valuable sentiment to express in the context of Salt Spring Island, our housing crisis, our participation in the draft Trust Policy Statement, and our official community plan (OCP) and land use bylaw (LUB) update.
I think it is important because from where I stand, Salt Spring Islanders are united in their desire to live in a community that preserves and protects the natural environment, but are fractured down class lines. What many folks seem to fail to realize is that Salt Spring Island is very much a pay-to-play community. If you have the available capital it is not a big deal to buy land, clear it of trees, build a 5,000-square-foot, five-bedroom, six-bathroom house with irrigated landscaping and high flow waterfall showers. However, if someone lacks the capital to buy a property worth a million or more, for example retirees looking to downsize, or a worker looking to get into the market or find a decently priced rental, life is much more difficult.
That is the status quo. Not one of equity, but one of gross overdevelopment of single-family homes built into our OCP and LUB, while workforce housing of any type is an exception that must be passed through local government at great expense.
Certain groups on the island are heavily invested in keeping the status quo. They seem uninterested in managing growth or density to ensure equity, they simply want to set a growth cap and let fall what may below it. They seem uninterested in stopping the proliferation of large, resource-consuming luxury mansions, but keen on ensuring workforce housing is done slowly, in limited amounts, in extremely limited locations.
Worst of all, they seem bent on painting anyone who questions their plans for our community as wanting to destroy our community. This last thing is actively damaging our community more than a lack of housing ever could. When I try to get friends or coworkers to come to meetings or participate I am often met with the idea that the Islands Trust is built to protect the rich and the retired, and there is no point in speaking out, or that the Islands Trust just exists to say no to working folks. When I stand up at meetings and speak out I often have at least a few but sometimes several folks come and tell me they appreciated me speaking out, that they were afraid to speak out because they might be shamed for doing so.
Wanting attainable housing that is affordable, adequate and suitable is not an unreasonable ask.
It is definitely not comparable to wanting to urbanize our rural community, nor is it something worth shaming people over. It’s time to have an honest look at our Trust Policy Statement, OCP, LUB and the way we speak to and about the people most negatively affected by the status quo. One-third of Salt Spring Island residents live in some sort of housing need, and that just isn’t right.
The writer is a working-class advocate living and working on Salt Spring Island.