Most headlines over the past weeks have dealt with some aspect of the cost of housing – the mess with the Ford government and the Greenbelt, how various cities are dealing with homeless encampments, and the changing definition of “affordable.”
Recent stories are relating how even people with good jobs are finding it difficult to get a place to live.
In some parts of the country, people who have been living in mobile homes are begging owners of parks not to close their facilities for the winter.
Stories of “renovictions” are becoming increasingly common. It has not gone unnoticed that while rents where there is no change in tenant are going up by a few per cent a year, rents where there is a change in tenant are going up a lot faster, in some communities topping 20 per cent.
A recent CBC story stated rents in Canada are going up at a rate of $100 per month.
There are a million and one explanations for skyrocketing rents, the primary one being inflation. Everything costs more, including mortgages and construction materials.
Some tie rent hikes to the high cost of buying a house. People who would ordinarily be arranging mortgages and moving trucks are continuing to rent since they cannot afford to buy.
The fallback with just about anything, of course, is to blame COVID. All those 20-somethings who moved back home to wait out the pandemic have suddenly decided the time has come to leave the parental nest, reducing the vacancy rate on rental nests drastically – low vacancy equals higher rent.
And then there are the housing policy errors of various federal and provincial governments over the decades that have all come home to roost, to continue the bird analogy.
The fact is, a lot of decisions, including letting the law of supply and demand dictate what gets built, have not worked out. Developers continue to build what they know they can make good money on, putting affordable rental units low on the priority list. Without government support and incentives, profits on this type of housing are lower.
While the economists and real estate experts duke it out over the root causes of the housing crisis, all most of us know is that we could expect to pay a king’s ransom for an apartment if we had to move. That traditional affordability number of 30 per cent of one’s income, for many of us might well translate to a cozy broom closet shared with vermin and possibly a roommate whose breathing is noisier than the plumbing. And we would be grateful to have even that.
We could devote more of our income to rent if food and other expenses had not also increased in price. Foodbank use is skyrocketing – something to keep in mind for those of us who are blessed with an income that covers expenses, with a bit left over to share.
The number that speaks loudest is that $100 per month increase in rents. How many of us can say our income is increasing at that rate?
The problem is not the cost of housing, it is the growing gap between income and housing costs for a substantial percentage of the population.
While there is no shortage of buyers for million-dollar homes, there is also increasing poverty in this country.
Common sense would tell us every society has had its rich and poor. We prefer a situation where everyone gets some and those who work hard can get more, to one where the fortunate few nibble delicacies off golden plates while the great unwashed are having bread riots in the streets. Someone found an answer to that imbalance – Madame Guillotine.
Fast forward from the French Revolution to Canada in the new millennium. We have million-dollar estates popping up like mushrooms – ditto for homeless encampments in parks and under bridges.
Lack of affordable housing is forcing people to stay in abusive relationships and substandard quarters, while the waiting list for subsidized units gets longer.
The imbalance needs to be fixed, now.
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Pauline Kerr is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with Midwestern Newspapers. She can be reached at pkerr@midwesternnewspapers.com.
