Anyone who peruses social media on Salt Spring even casually can’t help but notice the various “rental wanted” posts.
Sometimes they’re quite amusing, such as when the person or couple lives elsewhere but feels a deep spiritual calling to be on the island and will happily trade herbs and massages for shelter.
But there was something about the lengthy one posted by Megan Colgan on June 22 that really impacted me. Megan has lived on the island for 30 years, coming here as a 12-year-old child with her parents. Recognizing the name but not sure why, I searched the Driftwood archives, where she shows up as a youth winning equestrian competitions, a poetry contest, in high school drama shows and on the honour roll — living a pretty typical island kid life. As an adult she has been seen acting, singing and dancing in several theatre productions — most recently playing Venus in The Venus Conundrum at ArtSpring. And she also keeps busy as the mother of four children aged six through 13 and with a full-time job as an administrative assistant at Gulf Islands Secondary School. Many people will know her spouse Dominique Gaudet, a paid-on-call firefighter for 18 years with the rank of captain, who also works for the BC Wildfire Service in the summer and in construction through the rest of the year.
Megan explained in her post and to me in a phone conversation on July 14 that the house they have rented for the past 11 years sold within two days of being put on the market. The new owners take possession on July 31. Megan and her family had a whole year’s notice from the owners that the house was going to be sold, and spent considerable time trying to find a new place to live, she said, with options that included having a tiny home built for them and putting it on a friend’s property. But they couldn’t get bank financing to purchase the structure.
Megan’s full-disclosure social media plea was a last-ditch effort to find adequate, secure shelter for her family. In it she stated that they could afford only $1,800 per month — which has since been increased to $2,300 per month — and Dom’s carpentry/maintenance skills could also be part of the compensation. (That’s worth a lot, if you ask me!) Megan and Dom can provide solid references and have never missed a rent payment.
As of July 14, the online post had yielded much-appreciated community support and ideas, but no offers of housing within the family’s price range. More than one property owner with a rental home responded with detailed breakdowns of the costs of owning the property and why they would need to charge so much more than Megan’s family could ever pay.
Some people said she would have had better luck if she had not been so honest in her post about the financial constraints. I say bravo to her for acknowledging the reality of what it costs to raise a family these days.
Megan said they were temporarily buoyed on Saturday when they went to view a “perfect” place, but the owners did not choose them as the tenants.
On Monday morning, though, Megan texted me to say they may have found a home from an appointment they had on Sunday afternoon, although the deal had not yet been finalized.
(As well, a friend of a friend had come through with a very temporary solution, so that the family wouldn’t be immediately homeless after July 31. But that would only give them two more months to find a more permanent home.)
Even if the story turns out to have a deservedly happy ending, for me, this family’s struggle to find housing paints a horribly bleak picture of our community today. Is there truly nowhere for working families with children to live? I know it is a highly fraught business to be a landlord, but is there really no one who is able or willing to only receive $1,800 or $2,300 per month and maintenance services of some level in order for a family who contributes fully to our community to continue to live among us?
Is making as much as money as possible from a second (or third or fourth) property the only reason for having it? Does foregoing $500 or $1,000 a month really make a tangible difference to those property owners? Or have we really just run out of houses here?
Megan said it’s hard to understand how they can be “a two-adult working family that can’t afford to be in a home. It does make you wonder how this island is going to survive. What’s going to happen when all of the families like us are just kind of forced out because we didn’t get into the housing market 30 years ago, or because we don’t have family money, or, you know, those kinds of things.”
Megan and I laughed when she recounted how people say they might have to move to the Maritimes where housing is cheaper, or to New Zealand where she has family, or even just “off-island.” But Salt Spring Island is where they are securely employed and have built their multi-faceted lives. Starting over somewhere else would also take a huge financial investment, and with no guarantee that they would have a decent working income, affordable rent, or face less competition for it.
“We’re not unique in the fact that we’re searching for housing and facing not having a home,” she said. “There are so many families that are in the same struggle, and it’s really heartbreaking.”
Heartbreaking. Megan has nailed it. Even if Megan’s family has found a place to live — and I sincerely hope Sunday’s lead works out — how many other families are in a similarly stressful and heartbreaking situation?
I know the powers that be point out how some housing projects are in the works, even if progress is slow or not yet visible. But Megan and Dom’s story illustrates how dire the situation is right now. We need to remember that people we know and should care about are truly suffering due to the lack of affordable housing here.
The writer is the editor of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper and website: news@gulfislandsdriftwood.com
