Living the Dream: Whistler's "underhoused" make due

In Whistler, they're known as "the underhoused" - residents who live six to a bedroom, rent out utility spaces, closets or unfinished basements, or endure Pacific Coast winters in trailers or shacks in the forest to "live the dream" of a season in Whistler.

But when Whistler photographer Carin Smolinski invited people to share their living arrangements with her, she was blown away by the enthusiasm and pride they felt for their innovative solutions to Whistler's biggest social problem.

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"We call in Shanty-town," say room-mates Travis Meltzer of Noosa Heads, Australia, Keenan Filmer of Coquitlam, British Columbia and Jake Fine of Toronto, Ontario, of the loft space they have sectioned off with bed-sheets into six sleeping quarters. The two-bedroom, one-bath house rents out for $4,500 (CAD) a month - 10 roommates split it ten ways. There's no premium paid for a bedroom. "Actually, I prefer being upstairs in Shanty-town," says Filmer, who gave up a shared bedroom to move into the loft. "I'd rather have my own spot, so I can just hang out by myself sometimes. Living with ten people gets kind of hectic."

Another portrait subject, Matty, has been living in a cabin on the mountain for three months, not far from where Integrated Security Unit members have been guarding the perimeter of Olympic venues. To photograph his abode, Smolinski had two options. She could either rappel in to the cabin, or cross a stream and end up waterlogged. She opted for the rope-lower and kept dry.

A group of guys living in a snowcave declined to be photographed, but several couples living in vans and trailers were happy to let Smolinski in on the secret of sharing small spaces.

"Finding accommodation is the biggest thing here," says Smolinski. With each seasonal influx of workers, the question that's top of mind is: 'Did you get a place to live?'

In the lead-up to the Olympics, Games volunteers posted desperate messages on bulletin boards and in classified ads seeking a room in the resort before they had to decline jobs. The Vancouver Olympic Organising Committee's Home Stay program fell well short of their target, despite offering up coveted event tickets to residents willing to open their homes to Games' work-force members. The fact is, a room is the hottest commodity in town. Hotter than tickets to the gold medal hockey game, even in Canada.

Outside the Olympics, employers often make securing accommodation a pre-condition of employment.

To redress the chronic housing shortage for workers and permanent residents, the municipality created the Whistler Housing Authority in 1997, developing an inventory of price controlled units available only for purchase by local workers. Units at the Athlete's Village have already been sold to residents on the housing authority's waiting list and will be converted to resident housing after the Games.

These initiatives don't help the seasonal workers, though, whose ingenuity in the face of the chronic housing shortage is well-represented in Smolinski's exhibit.

"They're 'living the dream'," says Smolinski, who has been a full-time resident of Whistler for three years, and turned her bedroom closet into a nursery when her son was a baby. "I think Whistler has a bit of magic. It's like a fairy tale. You can go up the mountain, you can mountain bike, you can party every single night. It's Never-never-land. And there are a lot of Peter Pans here."

And all they need to keep the pirates at bay is a little piece of space to call their own. Even a utility room will do. As one subject said, "As long as the sewer pipe doesn't burst, I'm fine."

Hanging currently at the Southside Deli, a greasy spoon and grill located at Whistler's Creekside, and the Gone Bakery in Whistler Village, Smolinski's exhibit, Living the Dream, pries open the door on the community's underbelly and reveals it to be nowhere near as nasty as one might expect. In fact, it's downright exuberant.

-Lisa Richardson