To shelter victims of the housing crisis, this Manitoulin Island innkeeper has taken in long-term tenants
CBC
It's one of the oldest buildings on Manitoulin Island, and is celebrated by locals for its food, nightlife and history — but the Anchor Inn can't welcome overnight guests until at least 2024, perhaps 2025.
All its rooms have been taken up by longer-term tenants who had nowhere else to go due to the housing shortage in the area.
William Lanktree, 73, is one of those tenants.
When he began searching for a new home in his area last year, he couldn't believe how much the housing landscape had changed on his native island.
"Unless you got $1,500 or $2,000 to pay for rent, where are you going to live?" he asks.
He visited one place he thought he could afford, but said it was in such poor condition that "it wouldn't have been suitable for a dog."
As his search grew increasingly hopeless, he took to asking everyone he saw if they knew of any affordable accommodation he could live in while he battles a new bout of cancer.
That's when he decided to go to Little Current's Anchor Inn and ask owner Denise Callaghan if she had any rooms for rent.
The establishment does have a dozen rooms, but they're usually booked by tourists or other short-term visitors who flock to the area in great numbers to enjoy the natural beauty of the world's largest freshwater Island.
But seeing that Lanktree was running out of options, Callaghan agreed to set a room aside for him for up to a year at an affordable price.
She then started realizing how many other people in the community were struggling to find housing — especially those struggling with mental, physical or addiction issues.
Quickly, all the rooms she had available filled with longer-term tenants. Now all the rooms are booked for at least the next year.
Depending on the size of the room, the Innkeeper is charging between $700 and $900 per month.
It's not a profitable arrangement, considering it usually costs more than $100 per night to stay in the kitchenette rooms of the Anchor Inn, but Callaghan has no regrets.
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