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Olympic volunteers have to work to find housing

Social media matching people from around the globe with accommodation in Whistler

For Bill Whittle, volunteering for the 2010 Winter Olympics came down to accommodation.

The 59-year-old White Rock resident decided to sign up to participate in the Olympics late last year because he wanted to watch the Games unfold in the mountains. And two months ago, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games (VANOC) offered him a position as a volunteer with alpine skiing and the children's hospital.

Unfortunately, finding a place to sleep in Whistler proved more difficult than Whittle had anticipated. He searched through Craigslist ads and other on-line resources. Over the Christmas holidays, he decided if he didn't find a place in the next few weeks, he was going to cancel his Olympic volunteer plans completely.

"It was tough," said Whittle, who is planning on taking a month break from his full-time job in White Rock to work for free during the Games. "People were charging way too much for their places. I got offers ranging from $5,000 to $12,000 for the month."

Whittle decided to put a housing wanted ad on Craigslist. He got 24 responses, of which 20 were way too high and one was a scam. Luckily for Whittle, though, three of the offers were reasonable and this week he finally secured a place in the village for $60 a night.

Whittle's story is becoming a familiar one for Olympic volunteers from around the world who are scrambling to find accommodation in Whistler.

With less than 30 days to go until the Games begin, volunteers from around Canada and the world are preparing to temporarily move to Whistler. Over the past few weeks, websites like Craiglist and local newspaper classified sections have been peppered with postings from volunteers desperately looking for places to sleep and shower during the Games. The housing seekers range in age from 20 to 60 years old and come from as far away as California, Germany and Dublin.

Almost all the volunteers Pique Newsmagazine talked to this week were able to eventually find accommodation, although everyone said it was difficult to find something affordable, with most offers sitting around $5,000 a month. Some people were told by VANOC that they wouldn't be able to volunteer if they didn't find a place to stay.

Jack Sprecher, a recent university graduate from northern California, was one of those.

He was offered a volunteer position as a press assistant on Monday, Jan. 4 but was told that to keep the position he needed to find accommodation and provide VANOC with a physical address by the end of the week.

To find a place, Sprecher looked at every single ad he could find on Craigslist, scoured Facebook and posted personal ads as well. He said hotel rates were out of the question.

This week, his work paid off and he has found an extra room to stay in during the Olympics.

"I decided to volunteer because it seemed like an opportunity of a lifetime and you are only young once," said Sprecher, who has never been to Whistler before. "If people are so kind to open their homes to someone trying to do a good service, hats off to them."

For Brittany Lowden, a third year student at Carleton University in Ottawa, her search for housing was so difficult that she decided to start a Facebook group to connect with other volunteers looking for housing.

"I noticed a lot of other people on Craigslist saying they needed rooming and there were all these places out there with three or four bedrooms," said Lowden, who will miss a week and a half of university classes next month to be a host at Creekside for the alpine skiing events.

"I set myself a date where if I didn't find accommodation by then, I wasn't going to go... It was just the prices were absolutely insane. People were charging up to $600 a night for an apartment, so I just started to get skeptical that there would be anything left."

Her idea for a Facebook group, called "Olympic Volunteers - Whistler," was a success. The group quickly grew to 26 members and this week, Lowden and six of her new Facebook friends found a place in Whistler Cay. She is now waiting for her future roommates to transfer money to her, so she can transfer rent to the landlord.

"It has been interesting with everybody spread out," said Lowden of organizing a housing hunt with six people she never met before in a place she has never visited. "I have one guy coming from Germany, a couple of people from Ontario and one from Saskatchewan."

Denis Drouin has also gotten creative with his housing search.

Fourteen days from now, the Quebec man plans to spend six days driving across Canada to Whistler in an 18-foot RV with his daughter Melanie and her boyfriend, Sebastien.

He has arranged to park his RV on a plot of land in Pemberton during the Games, although he is currently trying to find something in Whistler, since he will be volunteering for both the Olympics and Paralympics.

"I will work with the alpine skiing, and I will be there at 6 in the morning and sometimes I will be off the course at 6 in the evening, and I will have to bus 30 to 40 minutes to get to Pemberton," said Drouin, who hasn't had luck finding anything so far. "It would be much better for me to be in Whistler."