Housing Surveys - 2018

Employer Survey

• 110 businesses responded. In 2017 the District of Tofino issued 621 Business Licenses, but we do not know how many of these businesses have employees.
• 52% of businesses reported periods of the year where they couldn’t find employees
• 54% of businesses indicated providing accommodation to employees, for a total of 687 beds at a median price of $400 per bed 
• Businesses reported being over capacity by 25% in the accommodation they current operate (e.g. on average if the accommodation would comfortably fit 4 people, 5 are currently living there)
• Of the 110 businesses who responded, they estimated a need for an additional 239 seasonal beds and 419 year-round beds. A note of caution: Businesses only indicated being overcrowded by 135 employees, 231 staff at their worst point and had 279 people living in “not-built” housing (e.g. tent or trailers). These numbers don’t add up perfectly and businesses may have misunderstood some questions, maybe be overestimating the need for housing currently, may be wanting to stop being in the staff accommodation business or may be projecting future growth. The need is great by whichever metric you use. 

Housing Survey

• There were 238 responses, with 195 people providing complete responses.
• 83 responses were from single person households, 85 from two person households, 41 from households with 3 or more people, 30 households with kids and 8 single parent households. A total of 17 households reported 3 or more people in their household, but no kids. These 17 households may or may not be households in the conventional sense (e.g. 2 adults living with adult kids or elderly dependents) or respondents simply reporting on the number of friends living together.
• 116 respondents expressed a preference for rental housing, 103 for homeownership, 107 for tiny homes, 54 for co-housing and 43 for market sales (not mutually exclusive categories). 
• Household income levels varied from under $20,000 to over $70,000.
• 39% of respondent households made less than $30,000 per year, 54% less than $40,000 per year and 21% made over $60,000 per year.
• For the Tofino Housing Corporation projects, there was a strong preference for rental housing to be studio and 1 bedrooms (55%), with 2 bedrooms (32%) and 3 bedrooms (13%) a smaller preference. 
• For Attainable Homeownership, there was a strong preference for 2 bedroom cottages (33%) and secondary preference for 1 bedroom cottages (12%) or 2 bedroom single family home with suite (13%).