'We thrived': Nova Scotians who wintered in RVs call for permanent setup

Some people said it couldn't be done. But after spending the winter warm and dry in her insulated RV, Carrie Steeves feels triumphant. 

"It feels good that it was successful," Steeves said in a recent interview. "It feels good that so many people told me that we couldn't do it and that it was not doable to live in a camper for the winter, and I knew that it could be done.

"We survived it. Not only did we survive it, we thrived."

Steeves led the charge last year for the pilot project that allowed 12 people to spend the winter in their RVs at Shubie Campground, a private business on municipally owned land in Dartmouth, N.S.  

With the pilot due to wrap up at the end of this month, Steeves is looking ahead and calling for a larger, more permanent setup for people who are turning to RVs for housing.  

Though almost all the residents have found somewhere to move their RVs when the winter setup at Shubie Campground closes, Steeves said many people who can't afford increasingly expensive traditional housing don't want to pack up and move every six months. 

Jeremy Van den Eynden wintered in a campsite across from Steeves. He spent most of the past year fighting a renoviction — when a landlord evicts a tenant for renovations and then hikes the rent — then struggled to find a new place to live that didn't eat up most of his salary as a metal fabricator. 

The $250 site fees at Shubie Campground, which included power, sewage services, garbage collection and snow removal, were enticing to him. Residents of the campground were responsible for buying their own water and propane, bringing the total monthly operating costs to around $500 each. 

"It's just gotten so expensive to live in the Halifax area now," Van den Eynden said. "It's unacceptable for me, and this is much, much more affordable for myself, so I've chosen to go with the RV life."

Van den Eynden is joining Steeves in calling for a permanent space to set up. 

"There's a lot of people living in these right now. I hear there's a couple of RVs at the [homeless encampments]. There's people living in overpasses. They're going from Walmart parking lot to Walmart parking lot because there's nowhere else to go," he said.

"I think if we start giving people a place to go with these, it's going to become more popular."

Steeves said there was a waitlist of people who wanted a spot at the campground this year, so she's hoping for more spaces and infrastructure to support winter camping going forward. 

As the pilot project winds down in the coming weeks, Steeves plans to move a 45-minute drive away from Halifax to Renfrew Campground in Nine Mile River, where she works in the summers.