Tent city has moved beyond tarps and thermarests.

On Tuesday afternoon, Kevin Sweeney, a 42-year-old mill operator, hired a tow truck to haul his eight-metre (25-foot) trailer onto the legislative lawn amongst a dwindling number of tents set up to protest the territory's lack of affordable housing, or housing at all.

Sweeney, who has lived in the territory since 1992, said he had nowhere else to go. He was kicked out of his $1,000-a-month, one-bedroom apartment on Strickland Street in the spring and has been on the Yukon Housing Corporation's wait list for social housing since April. His former apartment remains unoccupied, he said.

"I go in there every week and they say, ‘Thanks for reporting, we'll let you know when we have a place for you,'” Sweeney told the Star.

He works for two or three weeks in Tungsten, N.W.T., then returns to Whitehorse for two weeks to spend time with his partner and three children. His partner and two dogs will live in the trailer when he is gone.

He said it's against the law to tow anything with a a living entity aboard, so he doesn't imagine his trailer is going to go anywhere.

"I've been planning this for a while,” he said.

Sweeney left for work this morning. His partner, he said, is from Hungary and doesn't have the proper know-how to move the trailer while he's gone.

Sweeney's children, who are six, nine and 13 and live with their mother, will visit him in the trailer, but he's not happy about it.

"I can winter in this thing, but I'm not asking my partner and children to do it,” he said. "No parents should have to see their children like this.”

Sweeney said he's been rejected for housing because of his dogs or the fact that he has three children. Either that, he said, or the rents were way too high.

"Once you pay the first and last months' rent, plus damage deposit, it's almost like paying for a damage deposit for a house,” Sweeney said. "Damage deposit for a house anywhere else in the country, that is.”

In his case, he added, it's hard to pay such a high monthly rent like he was in his previous apartment because he sometimes goes four to five weeks without any pay during his time off.

Sweeney said he is fed up with Yukon Housing, especially since it seems to have empty units all over the city.

But Nathalie Ouellet, a spokesperson for Yukon Housing, said many of the units are vacant because when a tenant moves out, often repairs and renovations have to be completed before the new tenant moves in.

Often the new tenant has to give notice to his or her current landlord, and that can delay things too, she said.

"We do it as quickly as possible, but it depends on the availability of trades people and contractors,” said Ouellet.

Currently, 27 of the organization's 400 housing units are empty.

Seventeen units are being cleaned or repaired for the next tenants and 10 units will be occupied shortly.

Sweeney, his partner and dogs will stay in tent city until he finds housing or until his partner can't handle the cold.

"At that point, we'll be forced to leave the Yukon,” he said.

Sweeney isn't in favour of any of the political parties' housing promises. They keep making pledges, he said, but he'll wait to see concrete results.

When Premier Pasloski revealed his party's housing platform last week, he promised an expanded or new Salvation Army shelter as well as several new affordable housing complexes.

He also said everyone in tent city has been given alternative options, and whether they take those options is up to them.

"All of the sudden, there is an election and people are coming out of the woodwork,” Sweeney said.

"But I don't see any of the parties coming by and saying, ‘Hey, do you need a tent heater?' or anything like that.”