Roughly 70 Jasper households have moved into interim housing as of this week following months of anxious waiting.
Amy Cairns, director of the Jasper Recovery Coordination Centre (JRCC) for Parks Canada, said the feedback from occupants has been positive.
“This is intended as interim housing, so it’s not permanent or long-term but to allow Jasper residents a safe place to be for the next few years while they rebuild,” Cairns said.
Parks Canada is providing 100 duplex trailers and 120 dorm-style units for a total of 320 units to house residents displaced by the 2024 wildfire, which destroyed nearly a third of the town, including 820 housing units.
Over 600 households have applied for interim housing. Cairns said they had assigned 212 units and had roughly 90 left as of Wednesday (March 5).
Rent is $1,000 per month for one side of a duplex trailer or $1,500 for two sides, and one dorm-style unit costs $500 per month.
The duplex trailers have been placed on the four serviced parcels within the townsite. Some of these trailers, along with the dorm-style units, will be at Marmot Meadows, adjacent to Whistlers Campground south of town.
According to Carins, three out of the four land parcels in the townsite were ready for occupancy, while the fourth one would soon be ready.
“And then our crews are also out working at Marmot Meadows, and we’re planning occupancy by the end of the month out there,” she said.
Because the duplex trailers are sourced from various contractors, they all vary in appearance. A typical unit will contain a small kitchen, a sleeping area and a bathroom, and a duplex trailer has one laundry machine in the middle for the two units to share.
In the coming months, Parks Canada expects to pave the roads and walkways as well as make the sites more livable with landscaping of common spaces, picnic tables and other enhancements.
“Our intention for the first bit was just to work through all the critical path elements to allow safe occupancy, but we’ll continue to improve the sites over time,” Cairns said.
The JRCC has so far managed to house all of Jasper’s essential workers and support roles, giving priority to those who were being housed in hotel rooms, and has started working through the list of roles essential for rebuilding and recovery, followed by all other displaced residents.
“We’re continuing to assign displaced residents to the units and working through our list, but there are still a significant number of families waiting, and so we’re continuing to explore options with the municipality on procuring additional units and finding additional land within the townsite,” Cairns said.
While the Alberta government had previously promised to provide interim housing, this has yet to come to fruition due to its insistence on permanent, single-detached units as opposed to high-density solutions that Parks Canada and the municipality have advocated for.
Alan Fehr, superintendent of Jasper National Park, told media during the Annual Public Form on Thursday (March 6) that housing would continue to be an issue for the community over the next several years.
“What we needed was interim housing, high-density, quickly, and that’s what we’ve delivered with the municipality,” Fehr said. “If the Province is interested in contributing to that, we certainly would welcome that.”
Cairns noted that visitors and residents should treat these sites like typical neighbourhoods and respect the privacy of the occupants.
“Parks Canada and the municipality are committed to working together on interim housing, supporting the folks that are living here now and continue to assign units to displace residents as quickly as we can,” she said.
