The rental vacancy rate is "zero" in both Estevan and Weyburn as the resource towns grapple with booming demand and a lack of supply.
In Weyburn - where the economy is fuelled by the giant Bakken oilfield - some tenants are living in motorhomes, crowded apartments and campgrounds as city rents approach Vancouver and Toronto levels.
"When I came to Weyburn I saw the cost of housing was so much higher [than Toronto]. We can't afford $1,400 a month rent," said Taukeer Farooqui, 26, who moved to Weyburn last December with his buddy, 23-year-old Vineet Raval. In Toronto, the friends said they could afford their own apartments, but in Weyburn they live in a two-bedroom apartment with three more roommates.
"[Landlords] can charge as much as they want and we are suffering. There should be one government body who can control the rent," Farooqui said.
Others are even worse off: John Fogerty, 56, and his wife Terry, 43, have been living in a broken-down motorhome in Weyburn since October 2011, spending $700 a month for hook-up. Before that they lived for five months in a tent in a regional park at $500 per month.
Five provinces in Canada have some form of rent control, but Saskatchewan is not among them.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. pegs the official vacancy rate in Estevan at 0 per cent and its average rent, $1,068, as the highest in the province. According to the city, the lack of affordable rents is driving some employers out of town.
Officials are trying to encourage more rental housing, with mixed success. Weyburn is offering developers a $10,000 per-unit subsidy for every new rental, which resulted in a new 24-unit apartment building completed this year, but that took about half the city's incentive budget. Estevan Mayor Roy Ludwig is still looking for help from the province and the private sector.
"We haven't had a lot of success," he said. "We have taken developers to Regina, we have met with developers in Regina with the [housing] ministry and we are somewhat disappointed because we are not getting the shovel in the ground."
– With files from Weyburn Review/ Estevan Mercury
from Western Investor September 2013
