‘Feels like a community’: Dozens of Jasperites settling into temporary trailers

Some Jasper residents are now living in temporary homes, more than seven months after wildfire damaged the town. CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson reports.

After months of uncertainty for Jasperites who lost their homes to a wildfire last summer, displaced residents are finally moving into the temporary trailers they now call home.

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Parks Canada set up hundreds of oilfield-style trailer accommodations. They’re currently being rented out for $1,000 or $1,500, depending on the size, and dozens have already moved in.

Charlene Tio-Tio’s family of five is squeezed into a 720-square-foot duplex trailer at the end of February after living in a nearby hotel.

“We do try our best to make it doable for my kids. It’s not as spacey, but it’s OK,” Tio-Tio told CTV News Edmonton.

Tio-Tio was renting a house that burnt down last summer. She says her family is happy staying in the trailer and would like to remain in the town with a mountain view, but it’s not a long-term solution.

She has made the difficult decision to leave Jasper after 26 years in the mountain town.

“I have no other options … It’s a big decision and, unfortunately, I’m so sad to leave all my friends and the other families that live here,” Tio-Tio said through tears.

Tracy Hahn is another Jasperite who lost her home in the wildfires. She and her partner are living in a trailer and feel lucky to be able to stay in the area while the apartment building they lived in is being rebuilt.

“We’re actually in the town and we’re in our own sole place and it’s great, the view’s still there and we’re loving it,” Hahn said.

Jasperites feeling ‘certainty’

The provincial government backed out of its $112 million commitment to build interim homes for Jasper in January, and the municipality and Parks Canada scrambled to secure as many trailers as possible.

Michael Fark, director of the Jasper Recover Coordination Centre, says it “feels like a community” with more than 75 households moved in.

“They’re getting to know their neighbours, there’s kids running around playing, there’s bicycles outside and people are expressing a high degree of appreciation for having certainty now and a place that they can call home,” Fark said.

He says many families are staying in the trailers, as staying in a hotel for an extended period isn’t ideal and is hard on a family.

Having a temporary place to call home for families is critical, Fark adds.

“We’ve got families with young kids who are in school and this allows them to be close to the school and the kids to continue to continue their education without interruption,” he said.

“They’re Jasper residents that are also critical parts of our local economy. So they work in our service sector. They work in the essential services that provide emergency services to the town.”

He says there’s a “significant” number of households that the centre hasn’t been able to accommodate and that are looking for interim housing.

Long road ahead

Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland says, with temporary housing coming online, he senses stress levels are coming down for Jasperites, though he knows there’s a long road ahead.

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“The interim housing units are expected to be here for at least two years, maybe as long as five (years) in some cases, and it will take that sort of timeframe to get everybody’s house rebuilt,” Ireland said.

“That process will start sometime this spring and that too will add optimism to the town, even for those who are not directly rebuilding.”

Last month Parks Canada announced a pop-up retail village will be built in downtown Jasper to give brick-and-mortar businesses that lost their stores to the wildfires a temporary home.

Town staff expect demand for the trailers to ebb and flow as people’s needs change.

Last month the province announced $8 million dollars to support the town, with $2 million to help set up a temporary shuttle bus between Jasper and Hinton and the rest is for tax relief.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson