Affordable worker housing is latest tourist town business hurdle

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When he opened Fish \u0026 Sips with his wife in 2015, Paul Feather found hiring to be one among many challenges of running a restaurant with long hours on the main…

But after the COVID-19 pandemic struck and housing prices in vacation hotspots soared, the cod-and-calamari-slinging 49-year-old saw staffing as his No. 1obstacle, due in no small part to a shortage of affordable places for workers to rent.

Feather is relying increasingly on high school and college students for front of house — “they’re already living at home” — but those under 18 are barred from serving alcohol and limited to hosting, takeout or working the cash register.Businesses in tourist hotspots far from big cities are feeling the pinch of affordable housing, as smaller communities struggle to lure workers amid a labour crunch and rising rents.

The trend, which affects rental costs, shows no signs of letting up. Re/Max Canada anticipates average residential prices in Canada’s “recreational” regions to shoot up 20 per cent for the remainder of the year, the brokerage said last month. Bilingual employees — key to a federally run park — and specialty chefs are particularly hard to find as property and rental prices exceed young people’s means, Kennedy said.

“When people are buying these properties where they would have had tenants long term, they are putting them on the Airbnb market instead because they can make in a couple of weekends a month what they would be getting having a full-time tenant in there,” said Ellen Timms, a spokeswoman for the Wasaga Beach Chamber of Commerce.

 

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