The ongoing housing shortage in the Energy City is having an effect on industry at a number of levels now.
It appears as if the local accommodation shortages and costs are not just influencing the lower rent world.
SaskPower, the Crown corporation that employs approximately 475 people at Boundary Dam and Shand Power Stations, is having to take a step into the accommodation management marketplace in an attempt to find suitable housing for employees they hope to attract to Estevan for medium and long-term employment.
Judy May, vice-president of supply chain management for SaskPower, informed The Mercury last week that the corporation is currently running a series of advertisements in the Estevan area to see if there is some housing available for their future employees to rent and live in.
The advertisements entitled, Expression of Interest, call on area realtors, homeowners, property developers and managers to provide them with some idea of what might be available for employees with families. The call is for units that have at least two bedrooms or are single-detached or multi-plex units, condominiums, apartments, modular or mobile homes within a 100 kilometre radius of Estevan.
The housing must be available for occupancy no later than June of this year and remain available for a minimum of one year.
"We're looking for family friendly accommodations, not the labour camp concept that is being used for local construction projects. This is for permanent full-time employees. We are recruiting professional people for the Estevan area and it's difficult because they say they can't find housing in Estevan," said May.
"We're hiring people right now, so we're seeking housing for them immediately and there are proposals going out for later in the year. We're looking at all options. We want to give our employees some time to settle in and get their kids registered into schools and working with local realtors and developers to find their houses or condos for the future," May added.
"This is apart from the clean-coal project demands. They have their temporary accommodation situation; this is different," she said.
The SaskPower vice-president, said the corporation is helping its employees and future employees with this bridging opportunity since they feel it will help them in their recruiting process.
"We hope some can move in immediately if accommodations can be found, but they'll eventually need to work with local developers and realtors. This is just step one in a two-step program. It's something for right now, and then they can move if they want or need to, into more permanent housing. We've taken these steps in a limited way before, a sort of stop-gap measure. This request we're sending out now is for proposals for more of a transitional housing opportunity. We're trying to find at least 25 units. The number of employee vacancies at Shand and Boundary fluctuates regularly, but we, generally speaking, will have 20 to 40 vacancies in employment that need to be filled on any given week," she said.
So with an immediate and transitional housing plan in place, SaskPower hopes that will help them recruit and hire people to fill those positions.
"We don't want to be in the housing business. Obviously that's not what we do, but we felt it was necessary at this time. It has been a growing issue since the middle of 2011. There is an economic boom there, we know that with the clean coal, coal, gas and so on. SaskPower is experiencing the start of some retirements and some are retiring in Estevan, so their houses aren't on the market. We need new housing. We have a great group of retirees who will probably serve as ambassadors, and the process is too new yet to see where it will go, but we want to have contact with people who might help and we're doing that first through the expression of interest call and with the second step, which will be the request for proposals."
The deadline for the first call closed on Monday, March 18. May said the process and response will be evaluated before the company enters into the second step.
