January 2008 — VOLUME 6 ISSUE 1
Employees still hunting down homes
While there’s no shortage of snow at the resort, staff housing for employees remains scarce.
Now that the winter season is in full swing finding on-mountain accommodation has become a mission impossible—the rental pool of condos, suites and houses has dried up.
During the winter months the population at Sun Peaks increases—doubling in size to more than 1,000 residents. This combined with the fact that many properties turn into vacation homes, rented on a nightly basis for guests alone make monthly rental accommodations near to non-existent.
Homeowners are now renting their basement suites to visitors on a nightly basis instead of per month to tenants, says Ryan Schmalz, owner of Three Mountain Market and Mountain High Pizza explaining this is adding to the shortage of accommodation for staff.
Joanne Foster-Stoner, chief financial officer for Sun Peaks Resort Corporation explains their staff accommodation building at the resort—the Little Shuswap Lodge has been full since September and that the 14 extra rooms they’ve rented elsewhere have also been allocated, leaving 40 of the 550 SPRC staff on an accommodation waiting list.
The lack of available staff housing has led to SPRC seeking out vacation homes to rent for staff from property owners who are interested.
“We thought if there were any homeowners at the resort who may be considering renting out their place but didn’t have the capacity to look after it, we would look after it for them and at the same time find our staff somewhere to stay,” explains Foster-Stoner saying most of the people they hire require accommodation and losing employees throughout the winter season is a possibility if they can’t secure accommodation.
Homes offered up for rent will be taken care of by SPRC—inspected on a monthly basis, tenants will be vetted and rent will be collected, says Foster-Stoner.
But it’s not only SPRC staff facing the prospect of having nowhere to live on the mountain this winter, there’s a large workforce on the hunt for somewhere to call their home at Sun Peaks.
“We have people coming in everyday looking for accommodation to rent,” says Lark Frolek-Dale, realtor for RE/MAX Alpine Resort Realty. “They’re really excited about their jobs on the mountain, and the ski season, but unfortunately they have nowhere to live.”
Nicole Biepdael is one of them—she secured her two winter jobs at Sun Peaks in October and has since been searching for somewhere to live for the season. It’s the first time Biepdael has worked on the mountain and she says she was looking forward to living in the resort too. However she still lives in Kamloops and says being employed at Sun Peaks is costing her more than she bargained for.
“I would take anything right now,” she says about a place to rent. “I wasn’t planning on buying a vehicle. I was planning to live on the hill and commute on the bus to get groceries, but since I can’t do that I’ve had to buy a vehicle and that’s a huge expense I wasn’t expecting.”
Although many resort-based businesses have introduced incentives to attract and keep employees all winter long, according to Schmalz the balance of finding and keeping good staff during the busy winter season rests on several different factors.
“I think everybody’s always looking for staff at Sun Peaks—staffing is a challenge and gas prices and the lack of accommodation add to that challenge,” he notes.
Biepdael concurs with Schmalz noting she’s not alone in the plight of tracking down a room to stay.
“Everyone I talk to is in the same situation, I hear of lots of people and I think the only option is to build more staff housing,” points out Biepdael.
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