Priced out in Prince Edward County

You can leave the city behind, but not the chronic housing shortage

After more than two years of working for a grocery chain in Toronto, Joel Levy was looking for employment that would put him back in a kitchen and reignite his passion for baking.

He found a dream job at the new Royal Hotel in Picton, where his skill as a bread baker is helping cement the hotel’s gastronomic pedigree in an area that has become a foodie mecca.

“I grew up in a small town and I wanted to go back to a small town — a slower lifestyle, more relaxed, less hustle and bustle, friendlier,” he said. “That’s what I was looking for.”

But even before he took the job, Levy recognized that finding a place to rent for himself and his beloved dog, George, would be a challenge in Prince Edward County.

The county’s tourism business has been a wild success. In just over a decade it’s become the go-to resort area for GTA visitors eager to sample local wines, craft breweries and farm-to-table cuisine while relaxing in one of about 600 shortterm rentals and a growing number of boutique hotels.

Along with the urban élan, though, Prince Edward County has imported one of Toronto’s most pernicious problems — a housing shortage that hits particularly hard at the workers needed to convey the local produce from field to plate with a hospitable smile.

The high prices and shortage of affordable rentals that have plagued tourist destinations across the country have come home to roost amid the quaint villages and sandy shores about two hours east of Toronto.

Tourism centres, including Muskoka and Whistler, B.C. are wrestling with similar challenges.

Not only is the housing shortage making it difficult to attract workers, but locals say multi-generational families are watching their younger members move to the Maritimes or Edmonton in search of cheaper housing.

Before his job interview at the Royal, Levy had already calculated that a rental 30 minutes to an hour away in Kingston, Trenton or Belleville, would cost him about $1,500 a month — $125 more than he paid for his basement apartment in Toronto a short walk from the subway.

So he was delighted to learn that, in addition to offering him a job, the Royal had an affordable apartment for $550 a month in one of two homes it has purchased and renovated for its staff.

The hotel is among the local businesses that are creating their own solutions to attract and retain workers, who simply can’t afford to pay Toronto prices in the country, even if there were any rural rentals available.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say (housing) is the biggest problem we deal with day to day,” said Niall McCotter, director of operations at the Royal.

“We always knew it would be an issue. We didn’t know it would be such an issue that you wake up every morning wondering what else can we do.”

The county’s housing crisis really began about five years ago but COVID-19 brought the problem to “a whole new level,” said Chuck Dowdall, executive director of the Prince Edward County Affordable Housing Corp. Suddenly, urban dwellers, who thought they might one day retire to the idyll of quaint towns and quiet Lake Ontario shoreline, could telework, so they bumped up their plans and moved east.

Dowdall calls it a “careful what you wish for scenario.” When Prince Edward County set out to market itself as a tourist destination 15 years ago there were no plans for the repercussions on home prices.

He said rents and home prices in the county may be within reach of city dwellers who have the equity to move there full time or buy a vacation home. But it’s beyond the means of many locals and seasonal workers who staff the agricultural and tourism sectors.

In September 2020, the average studio apartment in the county rented for $717. By March 2022, it was $1,018. A one-bedroom went from $1,288 to $1,466 in the same period and a two-bedroom apartment soared $400 — from $1,465 to $1,855.

“The bidding wars are rampant on the rentals, so the average rental properties are going roughly 15 to 20 per cent over the advertised price.”

He cited a three-bedroom house in Wellington that was listed for $2,650. Seven competing applicants bid up the price to $3,300.

“We have become Toronto,” said Dowdall.

‘Bit of a shock’

The Royal opened in January, after first launching last year only to be closed eight weeks later because of COVID. It is committed to hiring local staff first, said McCotter. But in the summer it also hires some students and staff with specific skills from Toronto and Montreal, like Levy.

Although he wasn’t entirely surprised by the county’s housing challenges, “It’s always a bit of a shock when you realize just how hard it is for people to come and move here,” McCotter said.

The Royal bought two houses, one formerly used as an office and another that was once a retirement home, where Levy and two other employees are already living. The former office is still under renovation. Most of the staff accommodation has private bedrooms and as many bathrooms as possible, but also some communal facilities. Employees pay rent toward the upkeep of the homes but it’s not a profitmaking venture, McCotter said.

This summer, he said, the county is not only facing a housing crisis, but the cost of gas is adding another challenge.

“We’ve lost employees because they were coming from 30, 45 minutes away. When (gas) doubles or even more than doubles it becomes untenable for them. They’re just having to work closer to where they live,” he said.

“Industries are being more creative and innovative in what they are doing to find housing,” said Tony Garcia, director of the George Brown College Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts.

A Prince Edward County resident himself, he said high housing prices mean, “the locals are feeling the pinch as well, which is why there’s sometimes resentment to people coming from Toronto, who may have cashed out profitably from their homes and are happy to pay more.

“It almost prices the locals out of their own market and some of these are generational homes,” Garcia said.

Diana Cooper, owner of Green Gables, a gift and housewares shop on the main street of Bloomfield, about 10 minutes’ drive from Picton, grew up in the county and employs about seven people yearround with student help in the summer.

All of Cooper’s year-round staff struggle with housing security.

“We’ve got a 30 year old working here, single moms, retirees. All of them have at one point in the last three years been on the edge of not being able to afford living here,” she said.

“We pay a living wage here (between $17 and $18 an hour). We always have. There’s not much more we can pay. This is a small business. I can’t offer $30 an hour or $50 an hour.”

There are no apartments available and even people who should be able to afford to buy have been priced out. A friend recently went to look at some townhomes in a new subdivision and found them sold out within half an hour. A couple of weeks later, For Sale signs started appearing. The same homes were being offered for $100,000 more.

Cooper believes Prince Edward County needs what she calls perpetually affordable housing through a program that allows people to build equity and sell up while their initial home remains affordable for the next person.

“If people cannot own a home and build equity in our community, we don’t have a community,” she said. “We need houses that families here can actually buy at a price where they can actually own a business or work,” she said.

Cooper is among those who believe that short-term rentals have played a role in reducing Prince Edward County’s affordable housing stock.

Dowdall of the Affordable Housing Corp. said the county’s approximately 600 short-term rentals predate the current crisis. It’s the traditional long-term rentals that are the missing piece, he said.

“There is absolutely no kind of rental availability even for people in retail. It’s been described by some retailers that they’re living in retail jail,” he said. “One retailer was advertising $20 to $25 an hour for fulltime staff to work in their store but nobody would take the jobs because they couldn’t afford to live there.”

Dowdall said it’s not just hourly wage workers who are deterred by housing prices.

“We are having a massive problem attracting physicians. What we’re hearing from our graduating physicians is, ‘With my student debt, I can’t afford to rent. I can’t afford to buy in the county.”

Five-year waiting list

There are about 480 people on the county’s wait list for subsidized housing, with the average wait time now approaching five years. Dowdall said he gets about 15 phone calls a week from people looking to rent affordable units — those with rents 20 per cent below the market average of $720.

He said the Affordable Housing Corp., which is independent of the county, wants to build 200 rentals over the next two to three years, including a tiny home community of 20 to 30 units.

There has been talk of pod communities with separate sleeping quarters and common washrooms and kitchens.

“Honestly, nothing is off the table,” he said.

Dowdall admitted to feeling frustrated over the recent federal budget that allocated billions of dollars to housing — the vast majority of which goes to large metropolitan areas.

“There’s no separate consideration within that funding for rural areas with populations under 50,000 people,” he said. “So if I’m going to get on an application, which I am right now, for a major proposal, I’m competing against all of these larger municipalities with resources beyond what I’ll ever have in my lifetime.”

Meantime, Levy said he has no plans to leave baking at the Royal for at least five years. He said he’ll live in the staff apartment as long as they let him. It’s an opportunity to save for his own place while enjoying the county’s beaches and trails with George in his off-time.

After living in a basement, he said the sunny space feels almost too good to be true.

“There’s a little solarium at the end of my kitchen — just a room that is all windows. It’s great. I’ve got some celery growing in there right now and we’re going to be planting some herbs a little bit later on in summer.”