The rental landscape in Estevan gives newcomers to the Energy City their first real challenge in establishing themselves within the community.
For years now, finding a job in Estevan has been the easy part. Finding appropriate accommodation so you are able to capitalize on one of the many opportunities in the city's strong business community is the biggest obstacle.
For awhile, renters were happy just to find a roof to put over their heads with a vacancy rate in Estevan at zero per cent in the spring of 2013. Those lucky enough to find accommodation did so by paying the highest rental rates in the province.
Now, vacancies have increased but so has the price of rent, with a jump of 10 per cent on the average monthly rate from April 2013 to April 2014, making Estevan a more expensive city to rent an apartment in than Vancouver.
Renting in Estevan has become prohibitive to many low or even some middle-income earners. Those who can't afford to buy are left scraping for increasingly unaffordable rental units and too few of them to meet the needs. Estevan has only two-thirds the number of total rental units that Yorkton has, a city with only a marginally larger population.
"What we're seeing is that rent is actually higher than home ownership," said Jason Fleury, president of Trimount Developments. "If you're asking, 'Is an apartment building needed in Estevan?' absolutely. I think it will help balance that market out."
Mayor Roy Ludwig said with more residential development of all kinds happening in Estevan over the last couple of years and heading into the future, more balance is expected to come to the market. He noted the variety in Estevan housing has increased, with single-family, duplexes, townhouses and condos.
"(Developers) are building what we feel is a real good variety. Then you've also got West D at the south end that is more of your entry level," said Ludwig.
But all of those housing options require the user to buy, not rent the unit.
There is some difficulty for newcomers in finding something of their own to call home. Many of the rental accommodations are shared in some way. It's a common story heard by the volunteers at the Warm Welcome shelter, which houses those overnight without a place to stay throughout the winter."
"A lot of people aren't able to get their own place right away. They'll have to share sometimes even just a bedroom or a basement. As people are seeking to be independent and on their own, that doesn't help," said Brenna Nickel, one of the shelter organizers and spokespeople.
"The issues we see are people taking a long time to be able to get into an apartment or rental unit, because they need first and last month's rent and some sort of deposit. That takes a lot of money to be saved up."
When newcomers to Estevan can only find shared accommodation and either can't find available private units or can't find affordable private units in their price range, they don't remain in the Energy City for very long.
"What's too bad about that for the community is it's sort of a self-fulfilling cycle, because people come and can't get a place to stay for a long time and move on, which is why there's still that attitude that 'no one wants to stay here, so why should we help them.' If there were more rental units available that people could actually make their own space and have their own sense of home, they'd be more likely to invest in the community in other ways," Nickel said.
The development of new apartment units requires a developer and investors who understand that housing model.
"What most developers and investors are looking at is the cost of building against the rent revenues that you can get on a monthly basis. Does that business number make sense? There are companies that focus on that. That's their core business, which is building or acquiring apartment buildings," said Fleury, who noted that isn't his company's core business.
"It's a stable market from the rental point of view. We've received numerous inquiries and we're vetting a couple right now, where people are actually asking us if they can buy a complete building off us," Fleury said. "We've looked at those options, and we're seriously considering them. We don't have anything to report on the transactions, but we are pursuing that."
He said those inquiries have included interest in both condo buildings or buying some townhouses to turn into affordable rental units along with assistance from a Saskatchewan Housing Authority program.
"They're vetting that program, and we've said we're prepared to work with another business. We can provide the product and they can be the owner and landlord," said Fleury.
Connecting developers with those SHA programs is something the City has been involved in as well.
"All those programs that the province has made available to us, we've made sure that the developers are well aware of them," said Ludwig, adding that the City has taken developers to Regina to meet with the SHA minister to discuss the funding available to developers for building certain types of housing in the community.
"The vacancy rate, as the statistics will show, are increasing, therefore we feel that with supply and demand, given time, the rates will go down. That's what we're optimistically hoping for," said Ludwig.
