CANMORE – The first year of the Safe Park program saw minimal uptake, but a number of factors and the regularity of people living in their vehicles could see it return for another year.
Canmore council received an update on the first year of the program, which allows people living out of their vehicles and working in the community to register with the Town to stay in permitted lots.
The program was established in an attempt to curb the growing number of people choosing to live out of vehicles and concerns voiced by some residents in town.
“We don’t know what it would look like if we didn’t do this program, but I can say we started this program because of the situation,” said Lisa Brown, the manager of community social development, on the increasing number of people turning to living out of their vehicles while working and visiting Canmore.
“There was a certain circumstance with quite a few vehicles parked behind the Save-On-Foods and Elevation Place and we realized some of those individuals are working in our community and the number of vehicles was becoming unmanageable for our community. This program was created as a response to that situation.”
According to a staff report, the Town had 17 inquiries for the program and seven applications in 2021, but fewer than five registered. Several people said they found alternate housing with friends, in staff accommodation or did not want to move their vehicle each day, the report stated.
During the length of the pilot program, staff estimated there were an average of eight unpermitted vehicles each day in the lots. The vast majority of unpermitted vehicles stayed behind Save-On-Foods – which saw more than 30 vehicles per month during the length of the program – while the other lots never had more than 10.
Kayla Eykelboom, the Town’s housing evaluator, said they collaborated with communities such as Squamish, Tofino, Ucluelet and Valemount in British Columbia which had similar programs.
She said Canmore didn’t see an increase in people living in their vehicles, but that “communities out west have seen explosions in numbers in recent years.”
Mayor Sean Krausert noted the possibility of the smoke-filled summer potentially deterring people from coming to the mountains, while the ongoing pandemic was also raised as a reason for the downtick or stagnation of people arriving in Canmore and using their vehicles as housing.
Eykelboom they plan to work with the Town’s economic development team for additional housing options for seasonal workforce.
She noted they are working with bylaw services on enforcing the areas that are frequented by people living in their vehicles and that they didn’t receive negative feedback from residents.
For the people who registered, Eykelboom said there was demand for something greater than just a summer use program.
"There was consistent use and everything did run smoothly from an operational standpoint,” she said.
A 2019 evaluation by the Town showed the majority of people living in their vehicles had seasonal jobs in the community.
The evaluation was kickstarted when a growing number of people were living in their vehicles in the parking lots behind Save-On-Foods – often referred to as Vanmore – and next to Elevation Place.
A municipal working group looked at all options and council enforced parking restrictions, but also collected information on people for further review.
The Town hired an outreach worker in 2019 and later in the year a report estimated about 38 people lived in their vehicles while working in seasonal jobs, which accounted for roughly five per cent of the workforce.
The Safe Park program was approved in early 2020, led by the community social development department, but was postponed a year due to the pandemic.
A significantly scaled back program launched in June with 20 designated spots and ran until Sept. 30 in the Elevation Place, Canmore Rec Centre, Save-On-Foods and Trinity Bible Church parking lots. All lots were given a porta-potty, bear-proof garbage bin and a security company patrolled each lot twice a night between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Anyone using one of the spots had to show proof of employment in the Bow Valley and pay $10 a night.
Housing and affordability are two of the main concerns in the Bow Valley.
The Job Resource Centre’s fall labour market review noted a one bedroom place in Canmore averages about $1,550 and in Banff it is $1,489. In Canmore, a two bedroom is roughly $2,036 and $1,865, while a bachelor or studio unit in Canmore is averaging about $1,111 and $1,081 in Banff.
The Alberta Living Wage Network released a report in October that showed the living wage for Canmore is $37.40 an hour for each parent in a two-parent, two-child household.
For a single adult, the Town of Canmore website lists a person would need about $23.70 an hour to sustain a modest standard of living.
Staff recommended the unspent money of the Community Social Development (CSD) pandemic response capital program be moved back to the tax stabilization reserve and used for a second year of the program.
“It’s difficult to predict what it’ll look like in the future. We had these great numbers out west and here our numbers actually declined from 2018 and 2019 based on our lot counts,” Eykelboom said. “There is some unpredictability around that, but the problem’s not going away of how we support people who are living in their vehicles. It’s always going to be a challenge until we have a program that works.”
