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“I went online back in St. John’s, mostly on the Kijiji website, and I’d look one day and call the next, and it was gone.”
She had little luck, and her experience is not unique when it comes to having trouble finding a place to rent in Gander.
Capt. Tony Sheppard, public affairs officer for 9 Wing Gander, said he was compelled to contact the Gander and Area Chamber of Commerce to see if they could help learn what properties are out there in the community.
“There’s no list around town of who had what rental properties and what was available, and where it was,” he said. “So we tried to get something for our own use that was a consolidated list.”
That list will hopefully come in handy when new personnel come in, like Sgt. Waterman.
“If you’re coming in from outside of town, then it’s fairly difficult, because you don’t know the area and you don’t know contacts,” said Capt. Sheppard.
Sgt. Waterman came to Gander on imposed restriction, meaning a person came to the base without their family. She said there are five people in Gander staying on an imposed restriction. After spending two weeks searching from St. John’s, she was eventually forced to live on the base.
“I’ve been looking on and off, and there’s been nothing feasible for me.” - – Sgt. Bonnie Waterman
“I’ve been looking on and off, and there’s been nothing feasible for me,” she said.
Access to rental accommodations has also become more noticeably tricky for students in the community, according to Bob Dwyer, campus administrator for College of the North Atlantic.
The school – which welcomes 200 students annually – has its own list for students to use when looking for a place to live, and Mr. Dwyer said space has become particularly tight in the last two years.
“The last couple of years, we’ve had students who on the first day of school still didn’t have a place to live.”
Every year he encourages to students to begin searching for accommodations early, and for those stuck, he said they usually manage to get by, often meeting a fellow student in the classroom with space for a roommate.
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