Save a buck and spend a fortune - the story of housing in Camperville

In Camperville, on September 8, I stopped to have a look at the housing situation. The building shown in the top and bottom photos is an ATCO trailer which was purchased by the provincial government (I am not sure whether it was the NDP government under Howard Pawley or the Conservative government under Gary Filmon).

The story I was told is the follows.

To "save" money, this and a number of other trailers were purchased in 1988 after the Calgary Winter Olympic games. The purchase price was apparently $1 for each trailer, but then it cost $90,000 each to transport the trailers and set them up as homes in places like Camperville.

For a variety of reasons, it would probably have been much cheaper to have built proper homes to begin with. One of the reasons, is that these "trailers" were never intended to be permanent homes and have not and will not last as long as permanent homes. The homes, sadly were put on timbers which had been soaked in creosote, and one of the problems is the environmental issue of the fumes coming off the creosote and entering the homes.

Today, Ernie Urbanowski (shown with me in the top photo), is facing the question of whether he should try once more to repair trailers like this, or whether he should be building new homes. Unfortunately, with the funding allocation he has, he is only able to use the money to repair the homes. The province should surely allow communities like Camperville the flexibility to use the dollars in the best way they can - so long as they go to improving the housing stock in the community.