Salt Spring Island businesses relying on illegal worker housing, officials say

When Donna Vasallo lost her housing on Salt Spring Island, the mother of two figured she would have to leave the island – until Country Grocer, where she works, offered shelter for her family in a two-bedroom trailer.“It’s meant a lot, like thank goodness,” said Vassallo, who has now been living in that trailer for about four years. “I’m so grateful that I have what I have, because I can afford to feed my kids and pay bills.” Vassallo’s trailer, equipped with hot water and a garden, is one of 25 owned by Country Grocer, along with six homes across the island.Donna Vassallo, a deli worker at Country Grocer on Salt Spring, lives with her teenage daughters in a trailer provided by her employer. (Emily Fagan/CBC)The grocery store is the island’s largest employer, according to operations manager Mateo Hermani, and currently houses a fourth of the store’s roughly 200-person workforce and their families. But the trailers, along with many other makeshift shelters Salt Spring Island’s workforce resides in — including boats in the Ganges Harbour — are illegal. That’s according to officials from the Gulf Island’s governing body, the Islands Trust, which prohibits people from living in these types of accommodations long-term.Many services on the island are experiencing a labour shortage, including the local hospital, says Salt Spring Chamber of Commerce president Jason Roy-Allen, driven by a lack of housing workers can afford.It’s pushed businesses around the island to offer housing for workers in order to improve recruitment — and fierce debate on how to solve the island’s affordable housing crisis.Company housing becoming popularAn estimated 1,695 Salt Spring households live in unaffordable, unsuitable, or inadequate housing, with “currently no realistic alternative,” according to a recent report into the island’s short-term rental market from Third Space Planning.Hermani says the store’s push to provide housing was sparked about six years ago when he realized an employee was living in her car with her daughter. The trailers cost about $20,000 each, he says, and the store’s owner Leigh Large has an ongoing interest in acquiring new property on the island to house staff, as the demand outpaces their available spaces.While housing employees comes at a cost, Hermani says this effort to house staff — first intended as a temporary measure — is now essential for the store to function. While he’s aware these trailers are against Islands Trust policy, he feels it’s necessary due to the shortage of housing his workers can afford. “There is no other option,” he said. “You can quickly see how that adds up, but it’s better than having to shut the store.”At one of his businesses, Roy-Allen received no applications for a recent job listing – but when company housing was offered, he heard from 53 applicants within a day.However, having your employer as your landlord comes with its own challenges. One of the trailers for employee housing owned by Country Grocer, located behind the Salt Spring Island grocery store. (Emily Fagan/CBC)Eric March, a Salt Spring resident who previously lived in homes provided by employers, says it can be daunting to call in sick or leave your job. “Whether you want to quit on your own terms or whether something has gone wrong… you quit and you’re homeless,” he said. “Jobs are pretty easy to come by on Salt Spring, but homes, less so.”Laura Patrick, an elected trustee representing Salt Spring with the Islands Trust, says there are a series of challenges making affordable housing difficult to obtain for Salt Spring and other Gulf Island officials, who find themselves competing against urban areas for provincial funding.“The cost of building on this island is easily 30 per cent more than in an urban setting,” she said.“So when you have smaller projects, higher costs, more complexity, it really makes it very hard.”Laura Patrick, elected trustee for Salt Spring Island with the Islands Trust, says enforcement on many illegal dwellings is not conducted — if there aren’t major concerns — due to the lack of affordable housing. (Emily Fagan/CBC)As a result, a Vital Signs report from 2022 estimated the island has a vacancy rate of below one per cent. Patrick says that while the Islands Trust is aware of the many illegal dwellings on the island, if there are no environmental and health concerns, the occupants are left alone due to the housing crunch.The island had 137 homeless residents in the 2025 point-in-time count – down from 165 people in 2023, which at the time was the highest per-capita rate of homelessness in B.C.Residents clash over potential solutionsIt is undisputed among residents of the island that Salt Spring is in the midst of a compounding housing crisis – but the best path forward is a hotly contested topic that has divided community members for years.The Islands Trust is in the process of reviewing the island’s official community plan (OCP) over the next year, which Patrick hopes will allow for more options to address housing insecurity.Ron Wright, a founding member of Keep Salt Spring Sustainable, is worried about the toll adding more density may have on the island’s environment and limited freshwater resources. He feels the existing OCP allows for enough housing to be built to address the challenges, and worries changes could set developers loose, to the detriment of the island.St. Mary Lake, one of Salt Spring Island’s main water sources. (Megan Thomas/CBC)“The solution is to have more publicly-funded housing that is situated where there are services, where there’s water and sewer and transportation and shops and all of that,” Wright said. “Pretty much everybody recognizes that, it’s just a matter of doing more of it and doing it as quickly as we can and that is moving ahead.”About 140 units of affordable housing have been built over the past five years, according to the Capital Regional District’s Salt Spring Island director Gary Holman. He noted three other projects are planned or proposed for the island, which combined could provide more than 120 additional units.Push for denser housingRoy-Allen, however, thinks the Islands Trust has taken its mandate to preserve and protect the island too far. To urgently address the challenges islanders are facing, he wants four-storey housing complexes allowed in the town centre, year-round secondary suites allowed on more of the island, and more workforce housing. He thinks it’s possible to find a balance between providing safe, legal places for people to live and preventing the loss of critical workers to other communities — without it coming at a cost to the environment. Salt Spring Chamber of Commerce president Jason Roy-Allen stands next to Ganges Harbour, where some residents live in derelict boats due to affordability challenges. (Emily Fagan/CBC)“When you come in on a boat into our Ganges Harbour and you see derelict sailboats and multiple people living on little floating rafts, what does that say about us?” said Roy-Allen. “It says that we’re a conflicted community and we really need to work together to come up with a better solution.”