There are a lot of words being thrown around these days, words about how Saskatchewan is now a "have" province, is growing at an unprecedented rate, is rising to a new level of prosperity.

There are also many words about how Saskatchewan is going to do things differently from our western neighbour, Alberta, which has seen its share of prosperity from the oil industry; coincidentally, that same industry is now helping to drive the growth and expansion in this province, along with other commodities and grain.

There are more jobs available than there are skilled people to fill them, so people are now coming in to this province instead of the one next door. There is a sense of optimism here long-looked-for - and with that comes growing pains.

Chief among these is the basic problem of housing. Some people can be found and brought in to start filling the jobs that are available, but where do they live? Many homes are being built, in addition to the several new homes built last year in Weyburn.

But for a new family coming to Weyburn to take up a new job, there is little to choose from; rentals have long waiting lists, and when a home does go on the market for sale, it's at a much higher price than it otherwise could fetch, mostly due to the high demand for it. It's a seller's market, as home sellers can virtually ask any price they want right now.

So how do communities grow when there is little to no affordable housing available? What do low income people do for housing, particularly singles?

These were some of the very crucial questions being asked by a provincial task force on affordable housing, and it appropriately made Weyburn the first stop of 10 cities around the province - appropriate because the problem is perhaps more acute here than almost anywhere else, as this city is central to the heightened activity in the Bakken play as well as in the Weyburn-Midale fields.

If the words uttered by Premier Brad Wall that Saskatchewan is going to learn from Alberta's mistakes are going to be true, then they have to put up some of their newfound wealth of dollars, and help communities like Weyburn be able to work with developers and start building some affordable housing.

Do we want to end up like Calgary, where there are many as 4,000 homeless people because they simply can't afford to find a place to live? Granted Weyburn is a long ways from becoming Calgary, but on a per-capita basis we could have a similar problem of trying to fill many positions, for everything from service jobs to construction to the oil industry and everything in between.

Let's put some action where our words are, and start to address this major problem in Weyburn and area - and this will require cooperation of all levels of government. - Greg Nikkel