No Vacancy: Employers explore unique solutions to lack of staff housing

Part 2 of No Vacancy, an ongoing series about Osoyoos’ lack of housing and the creative measures residents are taking to address it. Read Part 1 here.

By Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

The leaves change over with the seasons, and the demand for employees falls for many seasonal positions in Osoyoos.

Next year, Doug Robb, general manager of the Osoyoos Golf Club, is hoping to incentivize employees to live and work in town, filling the 70 or so positions which open up during the spring and summer golfing season.

“To give them some kind of living allowance, to give them some sort of incentive to come to this area to work. Most of our employees are experienced or senior employees, so they’re already in the community, rooted in town,” Robb said. “But to get younger people for these seasonal jobs is really difficult because of the living situation.”

The golf club has 79 full-time employees and 70 seasonal employees. Like other businesses in town, there is a core, sturdy group of employees for year-round operations, but roles that come and go with the seasons are harder to fill.

“A lot of those (full-time) people are already living in the community, you don’t have to worry about those, but to attract new people, that’s where we run up against the challenges because we just don’t have the housing,” Robb said.

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Finding a suitable rental for employees is an ongoing issue for seasonal businesses, and service industry staff are struggling to find single-bedroom or affordable solutions prompting local hoteliers and other employers to build housing out of oilfield camp trailers.

Robb added short-term vacation rentals are far more attractive money-makers for a property owner over a long-term tennant.

A quick search of short-term rental giant AirBnb shows at least 60 options for a week-long stay in Osoyoos during the shoulder season, but anyone looking to rent for less than $1,200 a month won’t have as much luck.

“Those (long-term rentals) are really hard to find, especially for three, four, six months. Really, really difficult. Especially when you have people who have suites and stuff, but they are renting them out in the summer for a lot of money. They don’t want the six-month rentals. They want the nine-day rentals, the weekly rentals,” Robb said. “That’s the challenge.”

Employers in Osoyoos find different ways around it, whether it is cash incentives, unique hiring strategies or long-term planning.

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JoJo’s Café owner, Joanne Muirhead, said she does not run in to the housing issues with her staff.

“The people that I have recently employed are all people that have family here, so they have not needed housing. I’m super, super lucky because the people that I have working for me now already had a place to live. They were planning on moving here, or staying here or whatever,” Muirhead said.

Still, Muirhead is part of the Osoyoos Affordable Housing Task Force, a committee which works with the municipality providing recommendations to town council on housing issues — and she is very supportive of any efforts to bring in staff accommodations.

“I’ve only needed housing once for an employee who I had from France. Other than that I try to develop local people because then I don’t have to deal with the housing issue,” Muirhead said. “For me, what I want to do is train locals.”

She is hoping to one day bring hospitality industry skills to local high school students through some kind of collaboration with Osoyoos Secondary School.

Muirhead added there is an additional challenge as the hospitality industry has been forecasting labour shortages for years.

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According to the Hotel Association of Canada, two out of every three accommodation businesses see labour issues as a “significant business impediment.” In a 2016 report, the Hotel Association said if nothing is done to increase the supply of labour, the shortfall in revenues for the tourism sector is estimated at $27.4 billion by 2035. 

“There are less people getting into this line of work. They’ve known that this has been coming for years and years, and warning us for years saying there are less people going through these programs,” Muirhead said.

Less intake into hospitality programs at post-secondary schools were another warning sign. 

“That was six years ago and guess what? We’re there. Nobody wants to do dishes, nobody wants to be a barista where you have to sweep the floors and mop the floors,” Muirhead said.

Learning not only life skills, but skills you can get paid for, is something Muirhead wants to see implemented in schools.

“For example, I’ve had 20-year-olds who have never held a broom in their life and they have no idea how to sweep. It’s alarming,” Muirhead said.

She hopes a program could empower students with “life skills you can get paid for.”

“I would like to encourage that as a solution.”