As the area grows, housing becomes an increasingly major concern for not only for the City of Yorkton, but the entire region. The Yorkton Chamber of Commerce recently held a housing conference to discuss and explore different ways of dealing with the issue.
Juanita Polegi, Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, says the event was about looking at the housing problems in the region from all angles. Businesses, developers and towns presented the ways they are contending with the issue, and the challenges they face in the current environment.
Presentations from Ituna and Leroy gave examples of efforts small towns have been making to increase their housing stock and to open up the community to new residents. Polegi says that the smaller centres are often imaginative and innovative in their approach.
"The people in those smaller centres are very creative... The beauty of this conference is that one idea is given out, and people are able to build on and customize those ideas so that it's relevant to their own communities. Large or small, each community can pick something up from the other guy," she notes.
Polegi says that attendees came from across the province to the event, in order to discover new ways to get housing in their towns. She notes that housing is a province-wide concern, and conferences like these give an opportunity to discuss different ways to deal with the problem.
"We need to find ways to get housing into the community and a wide spectrum of houses. We need more rental housing, we need more affordable housing, we need entry level housing. There is a whole continuum of housing that we require. I think that the people who are here today will go back to their communities with some ideas and try initiate those in their communities."
With the province overall facing a shortage of housing, Polegi says that events like this are vital for finding solutions. As it is a problem the entire province faces, a conference like this is good to examine what works and what does not.
"When you're talking about common problems, you can maybe come up with some common solutions," she adds.
She notes that the conference would not be possible without the support of the community and businesses. Since it's a problem that affects everyone, it's good to see people working together with the common goal in mind.
