Salt Spring Island businesses relying on illegal worker housing, officials say

When Donna Vasallo lost her housing on Salt Spring Island, the mother of two figured she would have to leave the island – until Country Grocer, where she works, offered shelter for her family in a two-bedroom trailer.

“It's meant a lot, like thank goodness,” said Vassallo, who has now been living in that trailer for about four years.

“I'm so grateful that I have what I have, because I can afford to feed my kids and pay bills.”

Vassallo’s trailer, equipped with hot water and a garden, is one of 25 owned by Country Grocer, along with six homes across the island.

The grocery store is the island’s largest employer, according to operations manager Mateo Hermani, and currently houses a fourth of the store’s roughly 200-person workforce and their families. 

But the trailers, along with many other makeshift shelters Salt Spring Island’s workforce resides in — including boats in the Ganges Harbour — are illegal. That's according to officials from the Gulf Island’s governing body, the Islands Trust, which prohibits people from living in these types of accommodations long-term.

Many services on the island are experiencing a labour shortage, including the local hospital, says Salt Spring Chamber of Commerce president Jason Roy-Allen, driven by a lack of housing workers can afford.

It’s pushed businesses around the island to offer housing for workers in order to improve recruitment — and fierce debate on how to solve the island's affordable housing crisis.

An estimated 1,695 Salt Spring households live in unaffordable, unsuitable, or inadequate housing, with “currently no realistic alternative,” according to a recent report into the island’s short-term rental market from Third Space Planning.

Hermani says the store’s push to provide housing was sparked about six years ago when he realized an employee was living in her car with her daughter.

The trailers cost about $20,000 each, he says, and the store’s owner Leigh Large has an ongoing interest in acquiring new property on the island to house staff, as the demand outpaces their available spaces.

While housing employees comes at a cost, Hermani says this effort to house staff — first intended as a temporary measure — is now essential for the store to function. While he's aware these trailers are against Islands Trust policy, he feels it's necessary due to the shortage of housing his workers can afford.

“There is no other option,” he said. “You can quickly see how that adds up, but it's better than having to shut the store.”

At one of his businesses, Roy-Allen received no applications for a recent job listing – but when company housing was offered, he heard from 53 applicants within a day.