Siding going up on a new house
Housing

First Responses: 2026 Cortes Island Housing Survey

The 2026 Cortes Island Housing Survey was launched on Wednesday, February 11. This is a joint endeavour between Regional Director Mark Vonesch and the Cortes Housing Society, who recently provided a look at the first responses.

70 people had filled out the survey when Cortes Currents interviewed Sadhu Johnston, a day after the release.

Sadhu Johnston: “The first Cortes Island Housing Survey was really, really helpful for us in guiding the work of the Cortes Housing Society. We wanted to do another housing survey to gauge where people are at and how they’re feeling about the housing challenges on Cortes. Also, for us, as we’re building out Rainbow Ridge, it helps to get clarity on what people are looking for in terms of their housing needs. We want to make sure we’re building the right size units, the right number of bedrooms, and things of that nature,” he explained.

(Sadhu Johnston (l) and Mark Vonesch at the December 2023 Cortes Housing Forum – Photo courtesy Suzanne Fletcher)

Click here to Take the Survey

Cortes Currents: By the time Mark Vonesch was available to comment on Sunday, the number of respondents had grown to 170.

Mark Vonesch: “Having data helps us make good decisions. We did a housing survey two years ago and we just released a new housing survey earlier this week. We asked similar questions to understand people’s lived experience with housing, both as owners and renters. Then we added a few more questions drilling down into some of the challenges that people are having, and we asked some opinion questions on policy decisions.”

“We’ve had 170 people fill out the survey so far, which is about 15% of the island. I would like to see at least another hundred people. So, if you’re listening to this and you haven’t filled out the housing survey, it just takes a few minutes. The link is on the Tideline. If you subscribe to my newsletter list, it’s been released there, and through the Housing Society’s social media and newsletter as well. I’m also putting it up on Tideline and we’ve mailed it out to all the mailboxes that receive drop mail on Cortes.”

“We’re hoping to increase the number of people that fill it out this year. Last time, we had almost 25% of the island fill it out, which is huge for a survey, but obviously the more people that fill it out, the better.”

Cortes Currents: How long do people have to fill it out?

Mark Vonesch: “We are running the survey until March 6th. We’re running it for a similar time as last time—roughly three weeks—so there’s lots of time for people to fill it out, but the earlier the better. We’ve made a few changes this year.”

Sadhu Johnston: “We are asking for people’s contact information. That will be kept anonymous. We just want to make sure that we don’t have one person filling it out 15 times to sway the direction.”

Mark Vonesch: “We also added a few more questions drilling down into some of the potential solutions that we’ve heard already, and whether folks are interested in them.”

First Responses on the Cortes Island Housing Survey

Cortes Currents: Mark released some of the preliminary results, which will change as more people fill out the survey.

Mark Vonesch: “Right now, we’ve had 170 people fill it out. Not everybody answers every single question; that’s up to you when you get into the survey. There’s a section for renters and there’s a section for owners that has specific questions relevant to them.”

“One of the questions we ask is: if you are housed, do you rent or own? So far, we have 69% of people who filled out the survey as owners and roughly 30% as renters, but 20% of those are renting a home, a cabin, or a tiny home. Roughly 10% are in some sort of unique arrangement where maybe they don’t own the land but they own their house, or they own some raw land but they’re still renting somewhere.”

“It’s great so far to see that there’s so many landowners filling it out, because most people on Cortes do own property according to the last census, and we also want to hear from renters as well. So, we hope everybody fills it out.”

Cortes Currents: Actually, don’t we have just about the same ratio of owners and renters on Cortes?

Mark Vonesch: “The last census was about 65% to 35%.”

“Another early preliminary result, with just 170 answers so far, is how long you have lived on Cortes. Most people who are filling out the survey have been here for a fair amount of time. 43.5% have lived here 21 plus years. 24% have lived here 11 to 20 years. Another 16% have been here 6 to 10 years, but there are also folks that have moved here in the last five years.”

“The next question is the heartbreaking part of doing this work: how many people are housed and unhoused. Right now, we have 97.6% of people who filled out the survey saying they are housed. That means 2.4% of people who filled out the survey so far are not housed.”

” We do know that on Cortes we have people that don’t have housing. They’re living in sheds and RVs without power, tents, and floating homes. It’s a sad statistic and points to the disparity in housing on Cortes. Imagine if you’re in Vancouver with a million people and imagine if 2.4% of people there were unhoused—that’s actually quite a large number.”

Cortes Currents: There have only been a relatively small number of respondents so far and we do not know if 2.4% of Cortes Island’s population are also unhoused, but that would work out to about 25 people.

Mark Vonesch: “We’re looking at affordability of housing on Cortes; we ask both renters and owners what percentage of their income goes to paying their rent or their mortgage. The data so far is saying that for landowners, 66% of people don’t have a mortgage. 18% are paying less than 33% of their income for their mortgage and roughly 11.5% are paying 33% to 50%. I’m guessing 4% or 5% are paying more than 50% of their income for their mortgage.”

“So, we can see that about 15% of people are paying a lot of their income for their mortgage. We’re trying to get to a place where everyone’s paying less than 33% for their rent or their mortgage, but there are lots of folks with mortgages on Cortes that are struggling.”

“When you look at renters, it’s even more of a disparity. 42% are paying less than 33%. 33% of renters on Cortes are paying 33% to 50% of their income towards rent, and 24% are paying more than 50%.”

“These are still early numbers. We’re hoping to have at least a hundred more people fill out the survey, but it is interesting to see these numbers and to understand the challenges that both renters and landowners have.”

“Digging down into renters, we asked the question, if you could afford it, would you want to purchase land in Cortes? Only 34 responses so far for that question. 76% of them would like to be able to purchase land in Cortes.”

We’re asking this question because we want to create some affordable land ownership opportunities on Cortes. We want to make sure that there’s an interest in it and so far, it looks like there’s a lot of interested people. The question is, what’s affordable? We’re asking people in a follow-up survey. These are really important questions that the Housing society’s going to be looking at, and as they develop some solutions.”

“One of the things that the Housing Society and I are both looking at, is there some affordable home ownership model that involves long-term leasing. So people purchasing a 99 year lease on a piece of land that has power, water, and sewage in a road and then build their own homes on those pieces of land and making them really, really affordable through having an application process where we’re offering it to the folks that need it, the most young people and families.”

“Another interesting question for landowners is  do you have space that would be open to renting if the conditions were right? 60% of landowners who answered this question said ‘no,’ but 34 people said ‘ yes’, they have a space on their land for a tiny house or a trailer. 24 people said they have room for a cabin or a house, and nine people said they have a room in their house that they’re open to renting if the conditions were right.”

“The fastest housing we can build is the housing that’s already there. This question asks us, what are the conditions we can create that would be right for someone to be able to rent a space on their land, for a house or a trailer or a tiny house? What conditions would be right for people to rent a room in their house?” 

Things learned from the Last Housing Survey

Space waiting for occupants – Photo by Jacob Bøtter via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Sadhu Johnston: “In the last survey, there was a lot of interest expressed by property owners that might have space to rent. We have people reaching out to us pretty regularly saying, “Hey, I’ve got a, I’ve got a little cabin on my property,” or “I’ve got some space and I’m nervous about renting it. Could you help?'”

“We’re not yet in a position to serve as an intermediary to help find a tenant and manage that process for them, but that’s definitely something that we are looking for information on.”

“We did an initial feasibility study and it looks like it could be a worthwhile area for us to get into. Everything from winter checks to helping people to bring tenants onto their property and understanding that and overseeing that process for them.”

“We did launch a home sharing portal on our website where people can register if they have a property or a room or a suite or a cabin or a tiny home spot. They can list it there anonymously and people can also list if they’re seeking housing. We haven’t had a ton of uptake on that yet, so we’re going to be putting more energy into promoting that.”

“I do think and we’ve seen in other places that do home sharing, if you have an empty bedroom or two or empty space on your property, you can get extra help around the property with another set of hands or even just some extra income from the rent. So that is an area that we want to get more uptake in.” 

Mark Vonesch: “Here is a really great opportunity and that’s why this data is so important.”

The laundry room at Rainbow Ridge – courtesy Cortes Housing Society

Sadhu Johnston: “Getting a sense of where people are at and the challenges they’re facing will shape our work.”

“In the last survey that we did, 20% of people that responded didn’t have laundry facilities, and that was a really guiding direction for us to add laundry and showers and toilets to our community building here at Rainbow Ridge. So that people that don’t have those amenities could use them here and not have to go all the way up to the Gorge.”

Working with the Women’s center and the Health Clinic, we’ve built out a little laundry room here. We’ll have a laundry club so people that are members of those organizations can join the club and have access to the facility here to do laundry and take a shower, that kind of thing.

Cortes Currents: Tell us more about the laundry service in Rainbow Ridge’s community building.

Sadhu Johnston: “It’s not up and running yet. We’re still getting our septic and sewer hooked up and getting BC Hydro service. The laundry machines are in and we’re just waiting to hook them up and to get the septic and sewer system working. So hopefully we’ll be up in the late spring. We did put out a survey to prospective users of the facility, members of our laundry club, and we got about 75 responses with suggestions about how to create a facility that will be most useful to them.”

“I talked to somebody the other day who calculated they spend 25 hours a month on laundry. They don’t have a washer and dryer, so they have to pack up their kid in the car, drive to the laundromat, wait around until there’s a machine available. For parents or single parents, that’s a lot of time to spend driving to the laundromat and then waiting around.”

“With the facility that we’ve created here, when you become a member of the laundry club, you get a card and that allows you access to the building. You could leave your laundry and go off to the cafe or take your kid to the park or whatever. There’s also a washroom and a shower here. So you could bathe if you don’t have hot water, for instance, in your own home. We put a utility sink in there as well. So that people can do a pre rinse if they do have diapers or pets. They can fill water bottles , that kind of thing.” 

“There are couches and a lounge area, you could sit and hang out. We’ve got some toys and things, and so it’ll be a chance for people to be in the warmth and have a respite for a couple of hours while they’re doing laundry.”

Construction underway at Rainbow Ridge – courtesy Cortes Housing Society

Mark Vonesch: “We just launched this survey this week and we’re looking for as many people as possible to fill it out. Your voice really matters in this.”

Sadhu Johnston: “I would just like to really encourage people to take the survey, whether you’re looking for housing, you used to have trouble with housing and now you’re settled in and comfortable, or if you have property and you’re not looking for anything different. We just still would like your opinion.”

Links of Interest:

Top image credit: New Housing going up at Rainbow Ridge – All undesignated photos courtesy Courtesy Cortes Housing Society; All undesignated preliminary graphs courtesy 2026 Cortes Island Housing Survey

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