Despite new units, family challenged finding place Yukon’s Watson Lake

‘It’s not going to be solved overnight. We just have to keep chipping away at it,’ says town’s mayor

Despite multiple housing projects being completed in Watson Lake, Yukon, one family says finding adequate housing has been a challenge.

In recent years, Watson Lake has seen 15 unique kit-set timber homes created by the Liard First Nation and the Yukon government’s 10-plex Housing First initiative.

Josh Laufer said it hasn’t made securing a place to live any easier.

Laufer moved his wife and three sons to Watson Lake after securing a job with the Liard First Nation (LFN). As a LFN citizen, he said he was told he would have a place to stay — but it didn’t quite happen that way.

“We were kind of shocked to realize that there was no housing for us when we first arrived,” Laufer said.

As a result, Laufer said, he and his family stayed in someone else’s home for two weeks until they could find somewhere else to go.

“We found some temporary housing just at a lodge for a reduced rate, which only lasted about three months,” he said. “We did manage to find a rental on the other side of Watson Lake. We happened to secure a cabin there, but that was only again a short-term rental of seven months.”

Laufer said he moved once more before finding the home he’s currently in. Grateful to have a place to live, he said his family is quickly outgrowing the space. He said he wants to buy a home in Watson Lake, but the few homes listed are out of his price range, costing upward of $500,000.

He said he’s lucky to have found a place — but the experience hasn’t come without its life lessons.

“It puts you in a survival mode,” he said. “You feel tense. You have that instability. It’s always the weight on your shoulders. The longer you’re in that, it affects you mentally and in your day-to-day. Especially with the challenges of raising a family.”

Converting underutilized spaces into homes

Watson Lake Mayor Lauren Hanchar said the municipality recently received upward of $1.2 million from the federal government’s Housing Accelerator fund for initiatives to increase available housing options in the community.

“Our first initiative is just for infill dwelling units,” Hanchar explained. “So that’s wherever there’s empty space, or if somebody has room in their primary residence for a secondary dwelling, or on their property if they have room for a garden suite.”

Hanchar said another one of the municipality’s initiatives is called the Residential Conversion Grant program, aimed at creating housing units in spaces that were previously abandoned or in underutilized commercial and industrial properties that allow for dwelling units.

The Town of Watson Lake has awarded $200,000 under that program to create new dwellings within the municipality.

Five approved projects will result in housing units in spaces that were previously abandoned, or which have been underutilized, while four more projects were approved as part of the Housing Development Grant, resulting in six units with funding of $240,000 being provided to Watson Lake residents.

Although it’s a step forward when it comes to alleviating the pressure on the local housing market, Hanchar said the programs aren’t perfect and understands this will not be the answer to all of the housing needs.

“It’s not going to be solved overnight. We just have to keep chipping away at it and keep trying different things and working with as many partners as we can — all levels of governments and the private sector — to figure it out.”

Related stories from around the North: 

Canada: Lack of housing for builders delays construction of new daycare in Sanirajak, Nunavut

Greenland: Despite housing shortages, Greenland razes colonial apartment blocks, Blog by Mia Bennett