This letter is in response to the article about the Whistler Housing Authority (WHA) and its never-ending wait list.
I don’t believe Whistler’s affordable-housing problem lies with WHA. They are doing what they can with what they have. They are purely a part of Whistler’s housing solution and shouldn’t be viewed as the only method to fixing this mess.
I would like to call out the landlords of this town. Don’t get me wrong; there are some good landlords here. I myself have lived in housing with reasonable rent in well-maintained buildings. I have also paid [through] the nose for what I can only describe as a slum. One particular landlord that stands out left stairs to the house in a dangerous condition, refusing to get them repaired for weeks on end just so he could attempt a cowboy fix when he returned to town. In the meantime, we were left climbing up the sides of the rotten steps.
Then there are even worse landlords. Someone I know went to view a place for $1,900. When he got there, the landlord decided to jack the price up to $2,300 because there was a lot of interest. That is absolutely disgusting. The cost of rent should be to cover the costs of the accommodation, not to feed the greed of the landlords.
The workforce here in Whistler should not be looked at as a never-ending supply of money, fit to milk dry for your own selfish desires.
This brings me to another point. This situation caused by the greed of some of Whistler’s landlords is why we are in the depths of a strong COVID-19 spread. The workers are forced to live in houses with 10 or more, and have two or more jobs, just to be able to afford to pay insane amounts of money for often low-quality, crowded housing. It’s hardly surprising so many of these workers are going for regular testing.
I would like to see the muni and the major [stakeholders] take this more seriously than they currently [are]. Instead of allowing even more huge houses to be built, how about working on some accommodation for the workforce? There’s a huge ugly house on Mountain View Drive that’s just been built and as soon as it was finished, it was on the market for the best part of $6 million. How about rezoning the Alpine [Meadows neighbourhood] and adding some suitable housing?
The only way Whistler can return to affordable housing is to have enough rooms for everyone. If we continue the road we are on, we are going to lose the important workers in this town. Who will run the chairlift then?
S Powers // Whistler
