Ontario RV owners are lending their motorhomes for doctors and nurses in need of a place to self-isolate amid COVID-19

Tony Wood, laid off from his jobs as a customer representative in a logistics company due to the coronavirus pandemic, wondered how he might hospital workers and others in the front line of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The answer was on his driveway in Peterborough. His camping trailer.

"I noticed a post on Facebook that they are looking for people who have trailers and not using them, if they'd be willing to donate them," said Wood. "I jumped at it. Mine was sitting there doing nothing."

Now his camping trailer is in somebody else's driveway, a personal-care worker who had been sleeping in her car in Cambray, Ont., for fear of infecting her diabetic boyfriend with a compromised immune system.

"She was very ecstatic," said Wood. "She was living in her car and her boyfriend had made a makeshift bathroom. It was pretty amazing."

Wood connected with Stacey Robinson, co-owner of Great Canadian RV with her husband Al, who'd made the Facebook post.

"I let them know I'm willing to let them use my trailer," said Wood. "I'm not looking for any money whatsoever. This is to keep them safe, keep their families safe. This is from my heart."

Robinson said she got the idea to use her connections to get RVs to those who need to self-isolate after she got a letter from a doctor near Picton who was asking for one. She didn't have one that fit his specifications, but another outlet in London - Can-Am RV - did.

Ultimately, the doctor purchased the unit at a wholesale price with the RV companies waiving their fees.

"We faced a challenge of teaching someone how to use an RV who's never used one before at a socially safe distance. That was something," said Robinson.

Her company - Great Canadian RV - is handling the sanitization of the vehicles.

And there are multiple companies in the RV business reaching out to their customers, trying to find solutions.

RVezy - which calls itself the Airbnb of the RV business by connecting idle RVs with folks that want to rent them - might be better suited than most. They have a network of 5,000 RV owners across Canada who routinely rent their RVs when sitting idle. Many of their clients are waiving fees and costs to get their home on wheels to front-line workers.

"It's definitely a time when RVs are much needed," said Joel Walters, the director of growth for RVezy. "So we're stepping up to the plate. The RVezy website has the option to identify your unit as a emergency-ready RV. So that's what I did."

Walters' RV is now with a nurse in Ottawa, a mother of five children, three younger than 10. The nurse, who asked her name not be used for fear of reprisals from her employer, said the RV has been a godsend.

"I work in an emergency room as a nurse," she said. "So the risk is too high for me to be going home to my family. But I didn't want to be too far from them either. Because I have five kids.

"We parked the RV in the driveway so that I can see the kids, but not be in the house with them and touching them. When they're playing, I'm keeping my two to three meters away from them, so I get to talk to them and see them. But I don't have any risk of contaminating them."

RVezy is mobilizing its customers across the country. A hydro plant is renting some to keep workers isolated 14 days at a time.

"Our owners live everywhere," said RVezy chief operating officer David McNaught. "We have inventory in North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie. You name the small town, we have inventory around it. So we can also help these smaller communities that are facing big-city problems."

Walters is renting to the nurse at a 90 per cent discount. RVezy is waiving its fees associated with setting up rentals. McNaught said some insurance companies are reducing prices as well.

There is an issue: Those RVs sitting on dealership lots are not necessarily owned by those dealerships. And many don't have rental fleets.

So Robinson turned to her clients, appealing to their goodwill.

"We have amazing customers," Robinson said. "We said, guys, if you have an RV and you're not using it, and you're comfortable with it, tell us and if we have a front-line worker that is in need, we can match the RV with the health-care worker."

That's already happening. "Since then, we had numerous calls from a variety of health-care workers and we'll be delivering a unit that we'll be lending to a woman in Dunsford, Ont., who works on the frontlines but has a mother who has leukemia, so she doesn't want to go into the house."

Kevin McGran is a reporter based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @kevin_mcgran