Rents are skyrocketing across the country and adding to the ongoing housing crisis.
According to the National Rent Report, based on data from Rentals.ca, average apartment rents in Canada have jumped by 8.9 per cent, from a year ago.
In the priciest city in the country, Vancouver, rent for a one-bedroom apartment jumped by 16 per cent, in one year, pushing the monthly charge to $3,013.
In Surrey, the average rent for a one-bedroom place jumped by 9.7 per cent, to $1,951 a month.
Delta didn’t make the list of 35 cities studied and the rentals.ca website on Aug. 15 listed just one one-bedroom apartment for rent in Delta for $1,940 a month.
Based on Craigslist, finding a one-bedroom apartment in Delta isn’t easy.
A furnished one-bedroom suite is renting in Delta for $2,000, while a one-bedroom, with den, in Tsawwassen, costs $2,500 a month. However, there’s basement suite in Ladner, with cable and utilities included, for $1,400.
In North Delta, there’s, a one-bedroom suite, with a walk-out patio and pool in the complex, going for $2,350 a month.
Nevertheless, there’s also a basement suite in North Delta for $1,600 a month.
On Rentals.ca, there’s also a private room in a house available for $900 a month in North Delta. However, the house is shared with two other people, two cats, “and other renters.”
As well, a one-bedroom suite, in a newly reno’d house near South Delta Secondary, that’s a legal suite, is a bargain at only $1,800 a month, on Kijiji.
“It’s just getting crazy"
Nigel Chitapi, a mobile outreach worker with Options Community Services, helps find housing in Delta for older people or those on income assistance or disability income. But it is a frustrating exercise.
Market housing is just too expensive for those on fixed incomes so Options can offer temporary rent subsidies, but those are just – temporary.
But after you help someone for a few months, what happens when the subsidy ends? he asked.
“Access to low-income housing is really tough,” he said.
People can also apply to BC Housing for subsidized housing, although that can be a long process with waits of months, or for some, years, to get an option on a place. “So it’s a pretty tough situation.”
It’s also frustrating when people contact his agency looking for a place to live and they have none to offer, Chipati said.
“The supports are really just Band-Aids, nothing significant …
“The main driver behind it getting worse are just like – increasing rental costs,” he said.
He notes that if a landlord is trying to evict a tenant, landlords often are not willing to negotiate, even with Options who is representing a tenant, and instead just want the tenant to vacate, so they can charge the higher rents that bringing in a new tenant allows.
Landlords are also more reluctant to rent to those on fixed incomes, he added.
When those on disability or fixed incomes eventually do get evicted, if there are no family or friends with whom they can live, there’s nowhere to go but a homeless shelter.
That happened recently to an elderly woman in her 80s and her two adult sons, who were all on fixed incomes. The family was evicted two months ago, and has been staying in a shelter ever since.
“It’s just getting crazy,” said Chitapi.
Asked what single thing could improve housing in Delta, and Chitapi said that there are not a lot of services. There are also no permanent shelters in Delta, only cold-weather shelters during the winter that open when temperatures get low.
Delta could use more low-income housing as well. “They do need the help but then there are just no vacancies, right, and people are waiting for years and years, months and months,” Chitapi said.
“It’s a devastating situation”
Coun. Dylan Kruger said his Achieving for Delta team campaigned in last October’s municipal election on encouraging more housing density in the town centres of Ladner Village, on Scott Road and on 56th Street in Tsawwassen.
“It’s a devastating situation,” he said Tuesday. and the only way to deal with the crisis is by building more housing. He said last year, the vacancy rate in Vancouver was 0.9 per cent.
“This is only going to be solved by a massive influx and supply of new housing in every city across the region,” Kruger said. He said last year, 55,000 more people moved to Metro Vancouver and more housing must be built or the crisis will just get worse.
Delta’s rental housing stock is also aging rapidly and deteriorating, he added.
Successive previous levels of government over the decades have failed to do the work to approve new housing, “which is why we’re in the situation that we’re in,” Kruger added.
He said he’s regularly contacted by people just asking him if he knows of somewhere to live and he has to tell people that he doesn’t and then watch families leave Delta to find a place to live.
“It absolutely is a crisis. The number one thing we can do as municipalities is approve more housing.”
Federal government is "pulling out all the stops"
Delta MP Carla Qualtrough said by email on Aug. 16 that housing costs are the number one issue in Delta, saying the government is “pulling out all the stops to get housing, including purpose-built rental construction, built for families across the income spectrum.”
She added that the solution is “whole-of-government” approach that includes its housing strategy and initiatives such as targeted immigration streams for in-demand sectors such as construction and skills training programs.
Asked whether Canada’s immigration levels should be re-assessed, Qualtrough said that, “Historically, newcomers have fuelled the Canadian economy and built our country. This has not changed.”
The National Rent Report is based on data on the Rentals.ca network and is written by Urbanation, a real-estate research firm in Toronto.
An Urbanation news release says that post-secondary students seeking housing, along with “population growth at an unprecedented level,” and rising interest rates, are contributing to the increase.
“Canada’s rental market is currently facing a perfect storm of factors driving rents to new highs,” Shaun Hildebrand, president of Urbanation, said in a release.
“These include the peak season for lease activity, an open-border policy for new residents, quickly rising incomes, and the worst-ever homeownership affordability conditions.”
According to the January 2023 Rental Market Report by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., rental demand surged in 2022, creating a national vacancy rate of 1.9 per cent.
The Rental Market Report said that higher rental demand across Canada reflected higher net migration, along with the return of students to on-campus learning. Higher mortgage costs also kept people renting longer while stable employment for young people also created demand for rentals.
