Kassandra Johnson says she used to be proud to call St. Catharines, Ontario, her home, but as rent prices rise, she says she now struggles to live in the city.
“Most weeks I have to decide between feeding my kids, putting gas in my car to take them to school, or paying the rent,” Johnson wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca on Thursday.
CTVNews.ca heard from several Canadians struggling to pay for their homes. Rising rental prices in recent months have forced many to cut back, with some having to relocate or move in with their parents.
Johnson, a single mother of two young children, said she currently rents a small three-bedroom apartment for $1,650 a month, not including utility bills, while working two jobs and attending college full time. The savings she had set aside in hopes of one day buying a home are now down, she said, and she struggles to make ends meet.
“Before the housing boom, I was on track and saving to buy my first home,” Johnson wrote. “Now almost 30 years old, I have used up all my savings and fear I will never own a home.
“East [rental] market has put me in one of the worst financial positions [of] my whole life.”
St. Catharines, Ontario is one of several cities that have seen an increase in average rental prices in recent months. According to the latest National Income Report Published by Rentals.ca and Bullpen Research and Consulting, the median rental price for all Canadian property types listed on the website was $1,934 in July. That’s a 2.6 percent increase compared to June, with prices rising due to high demand in the rental market, the report says.
Toni King, another Canadian who responded to CTVNews.ca, is among those who have had to move cities as a result of rising prices.
For the past two years, King said he had been renting a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Sylvan Lake, Alta, for about $1,250 a month. Although he received an offer to renew his lease for September, King was expected to pay about $1,480 a month, she said.
“As a single-income family, I could barely afford the $1,248, let alone a raise,” King wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca on Tuesday.
As a result, King was forced to move and now lives on the main floor of a house located in Lacombe, Alta. Despite being just a 30-minute drive from where he used to live, King said he had to pay nearly $1,000 in moving costs alone. He now pays $1,350 a month in rent, including utilities.
“It’s been a super stressful three months and it’s cost me a lot of money in the meantime,” King wrote.
Crystal Gibson, another tenant, said she was also forced to leave her home due to rising prices. For nearly four years, she had been renting a three-bedroom row house in Kingston, Ontario, for about $1,400 a month. However, her landlord recently sold the house, so Gibson couldn’t find a similar property for the same price, she said.
“Basically a room [unit] now it costs $1,400 and a three-bedroom house [unit] it’s over $2,500, and that’s on the low end!” Gibson wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca on Wednesday.
Gibson and her family, which includes her 5-year-old son, have moved in with her parents for the time being. While she continues to search for a suitable rental home, it has been difficult to find one within her budget, she said, especially with the competition from numerous applicants.
“[I] I have never experienced the difficulties that I have with rents and prices more than in the last two years,” he wrote. “I can’t live with my parents anymore, but I can’t find a rent either, I feel doomed!”
‘THAT DREAM IS GONE’
A recent survey by the insurance company Canada Life found that nearly half of Canadians who rent said they hope to continue renting indefinitely. Some of the key reasons behind this were a lack of cash and uncertainty about the future, as high inflation continues to affect Canadians’ disposal income.
Jeff Sinasac said he and his wife had been living in a downtown Toronto apartment for 25 years before the complex was sold in 2020 and they were forced to leave. Both had been saving money for a down payment on a house at the time, “in hopes of finally escaping the rent trap,” he said.
They have since been able to find a new home, but are paying nearly double the rent, Sinasac said.
“We are no longer saving for a house. That dream is gone,” she wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. “Survival is the only concern.”
This is also the case for Corinne Niddrie, based in downtown Vancouver. Niddrie currently lives in a studio apartment of less than 400 square feet and she pays $1,725 a month.
“I have a professional job for a renowned company as an analyst [and] I’m still having a hard time managing to pay that kind of rent, plus bills and groceries… let alone trying to save money,” he wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca on Wednesday.
According to the latest data compiled by Rentals.ca, the median rental price for a one-bedroom unit in Vancouver was $2,500 in July. The median rental price for a two-bedroom unit in the city during the same month was $3,630. Both Vancouver and Toronto have some of the highest rental prices for one- and two-bedroom apartments nationwide, according to the data.
“Living in the city is a struggle,” Niddrie said.
Those who live further north also struggle to make ends meet. Riley Copicus lives in Whitehorse, Yukon, where he said residents have not been immune to rising rental prices in recent months.
according to a rental survey conducted by the Yukon Bureau of Statistics As of October 2021, rental units in all types of buildings in the city had a median price of $1,233 per month. A separate report released by the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) in the same year estimated the median rental price of a two-bedroom apartment in Whitehorse to be $1,296.
Now, Copicus said most two-bedroom units in the city are priced around $2,000, not including utilities. These prices make it challenging to save money, he said.
“Every little emergency like…a car window that breaks from the cold and needs to be replaced eats up the little savings we have instantly, and brings us back to square one,” he wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca on Wednesday.
At this rate, Copicus said he and his family will have to wait years before they can save enough money for a down payment on a house. According to the CMHC report, housing affordability remains an issue in Whitehorse, where “market options are out of reach for some households without financial assistance.”
Amid concerns about affordability across the country, experts say Canadians are unlikely to see a significant decline in rental prices in the coming months. With Canada’s inflation rate remaining high, landlords are likely to continue to turn to their tenants to cover the extra costs, said Moshe Lander, an economics professor at Concordia University.
“All of us are experiencing inflation; homeowners are not immune to that,” Lander told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on June 15. [my] employer and say, ‘You need to give me a bigger raise to keep up with [inflation]landlords are…going to tenants and saying, ‘I’m going to raise your rent.’”
Paul Danison, director of content for Rentals.ca, said he eventually expects the rate of these rent increases to slow. Ideally, Canadians will see the rental market change in 2023, he said.
With archives from The Canadian Press and Michael Lee.