Ron Sept is getting desperate.
He can’t afford a car, his prescription medications, eyeglasses or new clothes, he said. He’s stopped eating meat to save on groceries, which he can only buy with the money his son living overseas sometimes sends him. If you visit him in his one-bedroom apartment in Nanaimo, B.C., you’d have to sit on the floor, because he has one chair and no table.
A new report says the average asking rent for a home in Canada reached $2,185 in June, up seven percent compared with a year ago despite representing the slowest annual rate of growth in 13 months.
The report by Urbanation and Rentals.ca, which analyzes monthly listings from the latter’s network, says average asking rents decreased 0.8 percent from May—the largest month-over-month decline since early 2021 and atypical compared with usual monthly increases this time of year.
Can we – legally, morally, ethically – punish people who are involuntarily homeless?
Or does the state, the collectivity, have an obligation to ensure shelter is available before chasing away, fining and jailing people for sleeping in parks, on sidewalks and in other public spaces?
As homelessness becomes more commonplace and more visible, especially in big cities, that is one of the big questions society must answer.
Housing Minister Sean Fraser in his housing design plans has done away with detached single family homes and determined Canadians will live in townhouses and walk-up apartments.
The department has released its Housing Design Catalogue for builders and designers, per Blacklock’s Reporter. No designs for detached single family homes are welcome.
Standing by the side of his RV in a bright blue T-shirt, Donald (Gator) Varnador proudly shows off his manicured garden.
“I hear people always talking about more affordable housing. Well, this is affordable housing.”
Gator, a senior, lives in the Riverbend Cottage and RV Resort just outside Parksville on Vancouver Island.
Sidney Wood says he was evicted last month because he couldn’t pay his rent.
Wood, 41, couldn’t afford the $1,620 per month for a basement apartment in Edmonton that he shared with his two teenage children. Not after he and his wife separated in March, and not on his CPP disability income that he says is $1,403 per month.
So Wood, who is unable to work due to PTSD after 11 years as a correctional officer in a maximum security prison, had to move back to St. Theresa Point First Nation, an Oji-Cree reserve in Northern Manitoba. His children, who are 15 and 16, stayed in Edmonton with family.
Ask the average renter and they can tell you: Canadian rents have soared in recent years.
The latest data from Rentals.ca and Urbanation shows the average asking rent for all property types in May rose above $2,200 for the first time. That’s up 9.3 per cent year over year, the same jump seen the month before.
In some of Canada’s least affordable markets, like Toronto and Vancouver, two-bedroom apartments are now costing renters well over $3,000 a month.
This is insane.
“I still have 20 more minutes before I have to move,” Anthony yelled from his green tent on a Hollywood sidewalk as he heard footsteps approaching.
Officials in Los Angeles had come by earlier to warn him that he could face arrest if he didn’t move his belongings.
They told him about the recent Supreme Court opinion that opened the door for cities and states across the US to punish anyone sleeping outdoors — the most significant ruling on homelessness since at least the 1980s, when many experts say the modern US homeless crisis began.
Canada has reached record levels of immigration in recent years — but as housing costs continue to soar, many are finding their Canadian dream has turned into a nightmare.
According to the latest poll from the Angus Reid Institute, about two-in-five recent immigrants say they’re seriously considering leaving their province of residence due to housing unaffordability.
All regions suffer to a degree but Toronto is dying. Killed by Trudeau’s mass immigration scam.
According to a recent Statistics Canada report, Canada’s population has just hit the level it was previously expected to reach in 2028. That startling finding underscores the extraordinary growth of the country’s population since the pandemic, driven by record inflows of both permanent and “temporary” immigrants.
A rapidly expanding population can bring some benefits, notably by stimulating overall economic activity and providing additional workers. But it’s not an alloyed good. The number of Canadian residents is increasing faster than economic output (gross domestic product), which has translated into an unprecedented series of declines in per-person GDP over the last several quarters. Productivity is stagnant, as newcomers struggle to find their way in the economy and job market. In addition, a significant share of new immigrants don’t seek or obtain employment, dampening immigration’s contribution to the growth of economic output.
According to a public opinion survey conducted by Ipsos (on behalf of BILD), 90 per cent of people in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) agree there is a housing affordability issue in the GTA and 72 per cent of agree that there is not enough being done to address it. In addition, approximately half of renters and young people in the GTA say they plan to move out of the province or to the suburbs in order to buy a home. Such shifts and the loss of these younger demographics would have a significant, and dire, impact on the GTA’s social and economic landscape.
The fault for this lies squarely with Trudeau and his destructive mass immigration scam.
TOWN HALL: Home prices have normalized “massive increase in value” for retirees, says Prime Minister. @JustinTrudeau spoke at a “private town hall” with Canada’s leading advocates of a home equity tax @GenSqueeze.https://t.co/5i7kveY3Nr #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/rrW4O02kxO
— Holly Doan (@hollyanndoan) July 2, 2024
From any angle you look at it, Canada’s housing market is badly broken.
The promise of home ownership, long the ultimate expression that one had secured a spot in the Canadian middle class, has faded away, not just in the usual suspect cities for real estate exuberance – Toronto and Vancouver – but in towns and communities across the country.
SEATTLE (AP) — A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces will allow San Francisco to begin clearing homeless encampments that have plagued the city, the mayor said Friday as she applauded the ruling.
The case is the most significant on the issue to come before the high court in decades and comes as cities across the country have wrestled with the politically complicated issue of how to deal with a rising number of people without a permanent place to live and public frustration over related health and safety issues.
A man in St. John’s rents office space, but he doesn’t have an office job.
He’s an electrician, driving from gig to gig all day. The office is where he sleeps at night, secretly, because he couldn’t afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the city. For two months during the frigid Newfoundland and Labrador winter, he lived in his truck. Then, in February, he found an office listed for $450 per month.
“I’m 100 per cent doing this clandestinely,” the 37-year-old told CBC News. “I basically have given up on finding anything else.”
Living with your parents. Living with your ex. Giving up basic needs like food and clothing.
These are just some of the sacrifices Canadians say they’ve been making to pay rent amid the surging prices and decreased availability marking Canada’s rental housing crisis.
Demand for rentals is outpacing supply across the country. A recent CBC News analysis of more than 1,000 neighbourhoods across Canada’s largest cities found that less than one per cent of rentals are both vacant and affordable for the majority of Canadian renters.
