Rent prices are skyrocketing across the country as hundreds of thousands of Canadian renters live in homes that need major renovations or are still too small to meet their needs. But for many, leaving their apartment is not an option.
“In the end, we end up with people who are afraid of losing the housing they currently have”, even when it is poorly maintained or unsanitary, “because they cannot afford to move” to a another more expensive apartment, notes the director of the Canadian Housing and Urban Renewal Association, Raymond Sullivan.
A report based on the latest data from the Canadian Rental Housing Index released on Monday depicts major rent increases across Canada. Between 2016 and 2021, these have increased by an average of 14% in Quebec, 30% in British Columbia and 27% in Ontario, among others.
In this context, one tenant household out of four in Quebec allocates more than 30% of its income to housing, while 9% of tenants in the province must devote more than half of their monthly budget to paying their rent. This is a little less than the average for the country, where 13% of tenants allocate more than 50% of their income to housing.
“Perhaps we have a portrait that seems a little less dramatic, but we still have a lot of dramas that occur in several families in Quebec,” underlines the director general of the Quebec Network of Housing NPOs, André Castonguay. In the province, he notes, the report in which his organization collaborated mentions 128,800 tenant households who allocate more than 50% of their income to housing. However, “fundamentally, housing is a big part of social health,” recalls Mr. Castonguay.
The report also shows that women are more at risk of spending too much of their income on housing, due to a persistent wage gap with men. Housing overcrowding also disproportionately affects Indigenous communities across the country, says the report, produced by a coalition of community organizations.
Poorly maintained accommodation
Meanwhile, nearly 490,000 renter households nationwide remain in overcrowded housing, while 350,000 households, or 7% of renters nationwide, live in an apartment in need of major renovations due to poor condition, notes the report. Only in Quebec, 107,535 tenant households, or 7% of them, live in a dwelling in need of major renovations, notes the document.
“Already, before the pandemic, there were many households who lived in unsanitary or too small housing for their needs,” notes André Castonguay. However, in a context of rapidly rising construction costs, “it is certain that the owner, if he is going to renovate, he will rent the accommodation more expensively”. Tenants thus find themselves “at an impasse” which obliges them to continue to live in housing that does not offer them adequate “comfort”, notes Mr. Castonguay.
“What we see across the country is a significant lack of available affordable housing that is in decent condition,” sums up Raymond Sullivan, who pleads for an acceleration of the construction of social and affordable housing in country.
In this context, André Castonguay calls for the creation of a housing policy, in Quebec as elsewhere in the country, presenting an “overall vision” to meet the many needs of tenants. “I think we have to go around the garden collectively to find lasting solutions” to the housing crisis, involving community organizations in the reflection, he believes.