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Feature Article

RED DEER HOUSING SHORTAGE

Written By: Michael Dawe
Published By: Red Deer Express
Article Used with permission. © Copyright Michael Dawe, 2007
2007-05-09

Red Deer is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. While the situation is serious and getting worse, there have also been times in the past when the community faced an acute shortage of housing.

One of the worst shortages occurred during the Second World War and immediately afterwards. There were several factors which led to the crisis.

First, during the hard times of the Great Depression, very little in the way of new housing was built because no one had any money. Things got better economically during the War, but wartime shortages and rationing meant that little was available for new construction unless it was directly connected to the war effort (e.g. military barracks). In short, for a decade and a half, there was virtually no new housing in Red Deer and a good deal of the existing housing was in need of renovation or replacement.

Second, there was a huge influx of new residents to the City. During the War, large numbers of military personnel were posted to Red Deer. At one point, there were almost as many military people in the City as there were civilians. While most were housed in the barracks at the A-20 Army Camp north of 55th Street, a number of the officers and permanent staff brought their families to Red Deer to live. Finding a suitable place to rent was an enormous challenge.

After the War, the City was flooded with returning veterans looking to resume their old lives or to start new ones. Some came back with new wives they had met overseas, while others got married as soon as they got back. Understandably, they wanted to start married life with a place of their own to live and raise their families. Finding such a place was often next to impossible.

As the post-war economy began to boom, even more people moved to the City, attracted by the growing number of new, high-paying jobs. However, this influx made the housing shortage even worse.

People managed as best they could. Many houses were split up into several suites. The suites were often very small and lacked adequate plumbing, heat and electrical hook-ups. In a few cases, old garages were converted into housing.

There were numerous stories about the difficulties. The local Presbyterian Church, after its minister transferred to a new community, decided to rent out the manse until a new minister could be secured. Unfortunately, when the new minister came to town, the tenants in the manse refused to move out, claiming that they had no other place to go. That left the minister and his family with no place to live for several weeks while the situation got sorted out.

Another young married couple thought themselves very lucky when they were able to rent a couple of small rooms in the upstairs of a rather run-down house on 56th Street. However, while they were finishing the move of their furniture into their new home, they heard a terrible racket upstairs. Rushing to see what had happened, they found all their belongings in a clump in the centre of the main room. The floor had such a sag in it that everything slide into the middle. There was nothing for the young couple to do but spend the next couple of days making an elaborate set of shims to keep things from sliding again.

The City and the Federal Government tried to increase the supply of housing by converting the old A-20 Army Camp barracks into small suites. While that helped to provide some interim housing, the barracks had only been built as "temporary" wartime buildings and were therefore poorly built.

As the 1950’s progressed, Red Deer entered a phenomenal building boom. However, as Red Deer was becoming the fastest growing City in Canada, even with the incredible pace of new construction, developers and contractors found it difficult to keep up.

With the very high demand, prices of houses jumped. By 1957, prices of new three-bedroom bungalows had soared to $12,000 to $13,000 each. Bare 50-foot lots could be bought from the City in the new Eastview subdivision for $1750, but there was also a $35 per lot survey charge and $125 per lot levy for sewer and water connection. Moreover, buyers had to promise that they would start construction within two months of buying the land.

Even with the higher prices for its lots in the new subdivisions, the City often found itself seriously behind in providing the basic infrastructure such as roads, sidewalks, street lights, water and sewer lines. As a result, there were some large public "indignation" meetings where people complained about both the state of the City’s roads and services and the escalating taxes which had been imposed to pay for all the roads and services which were provided. It was a problem which was to continue for several years.

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