Jobs beckon, housing scarce as Canada oiltown booms

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta, June 12: Housing in Canada's oil town of Fort McMurray is so scarce that some workers live in campers in hotel parking lots, pitch tents on the city's outskirts or rent garages and tool sheds as homes.

Billboards scream out job offers. Burger King pays (13 dollars) an hour, or twice the provincial minimum wage, while a Shell gas station offers new workers the chance to win a vacation. Spiralling salaries lure outsiders with the promise of a good life.

But the oil boom has also brought problems to a city that now has 61,000 residents, up from 34,000 just 10 years ago. Another 9,000 live in work camps that support massive construction projects.

There are an estimated 450 homeless, as would-be workers struggle to find a home, and police have doubled their drugs squad -- to six from three -- to cope with rising crime.

Last year, Fort McMurray saw 1,232 ''persons crimes,'' which include murder, assault and sexual assault, up 22.6 percent from 2004.

''We do have drug problems, we have organised crime, we have street-level prostitution, as do other large urban centres,'' said police Superintendent Peter Clark, the town's top officer.

''When population goes up and people are shoulder-to-shoulder in density situations, conflict increases.''

OIL FROM SAND

The boom stems from the mile upon mile of oil sands just half an hour to the north of Fort McMurray.

The oil sands, also known as tar sands, contain an estimated 174 billion barrels of oil. They are the world's largest untapped source of oil after Saudi Arabia, although mining this oil is far more costly and more labour intensive than tapping an oil well in the Saudi desert.

Operations are centred for the most part on open-pit mines and massive, steam-belching plants that wrest oil from sand.

Vast shovels load tons of dark sand into house-sized dump trucks with grilles larger than a garage door and a staircase for the driver to get up to the cab.

''They have a tremendous bearing on the community and I think, economically speaking, are one of the best assets that we have,'' says Melissa Blake, the mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray.

Blake, whose neat office overlooks downtown Fort McMurray, has haggled with the Alberta government to release more land for housing, and she says land is coming slowly.

''With rents, what we've seen is steady increases ... and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight as to what people would be willing to charge,'' Blake said.

A single room costs roughly 719 dollar a month to rent, close to the cost of a modest apartment in downtown Toronto.

Fort McMurray, where the mayor's seventh-floor office would be considered high-rise, this year approved the construction of two residential towers -- 31 and 28 stories -- and the city hopes that will help ease the problem. Building should start this autumn. Businesses are snapping up property around town to help house their employees or offering workers free or subsidised accommodation while they find somewhere to live.

SELLING DOUGHNUTS

At Tim Hortons, the iconic Canadian coffee and doughnut shop, area operations director Louay Maghrby stands out from the jeans-and-boots crowd, with his shirt, tie and dress pants.

''As far as labour shortage, it does affect our business big time,'' he said as mud-spattered cars and trucks lined up at the drive-through window. He said the Fort McMurray operation was the most challenging for the coffee-shop chain in all of Canada because of the lack of staff.

''Here, you show up for a month on time, you do your job good, you get a raise,'' he said.

Tim Hortons has bought a condominium for managers and supervisors and is renting a basement in a house in which new employees can temporarily stay for free.

Most jobs here are ''attached to the oil,'' Maghrby said.

''I don't see it as ending any time soon.'' Those burned by the overheated economy often end up at the Centre of Hope, a drop-in centre for the homeless on a busy downtown street which offers a place to rest and shower to up to 130 people a week.

Roger Wiswell, a tough-looking 49-year-old, is one of them.

Wiswell, like many others, came to town from the eastern province of Nova Scotia, hoping to earn 898 dollar a week. He found some work, but nothing permanent, and soon found himself in one of just 32 beds at the Salvation Army hostel.

He reckons he will try to stick it out for another month before he heads back home. ''It was better in Nova Scotia, as far living goes. I didn't have no work there either, but I picked up the odd job,'' he said.

Edna Moman, executive director at the Centre of Hope, says the flood of newcomers has stretched the town's social-housing resources to the limit.

''They just keep coming and coming and coming,'' she said.

REUTERS