A Window into Calgary’s Eviction ‘Gong Show’

Come Oct. 23, Shelley Bailey and her husband have nowhere to live.

In July, after nine years renting at Varsity Estates Village, a townhouse complex in Calgary’s northwest, the elderly couple received a notice ending their month-to-month tenancy. And as rental rates skyrocket, the urgency of finding a place to live while on a fixed income is taking a heavy toll on the Baileys.

Shelley Bailey wants to stay in her community. “I can walk to my doctor’s, and go to infusions for my Crohn’s,” she says, pausing before breaking into tears. “This is just killing me. I don’t sleep. I’ve lost 15 pounds.”

NIMBY or Not? NDP President Opposes Affordable Housing near Island Property

The BC NDP has repeatedly campaigned on promises to increase the supply of affordable housing, and the government even has a 30-point plan to achieve its goals.

But on Galiano Island, people seeking approval for an affordable rental project have run up against the party’s president, Craig Keating, who is among those opposing their project.

Texas law could stop affordable housing development in its tracks

The future of fair housing under the Trump administration is still up in the air, but a new Texas bill paints a bleak picture of what could happen to low-income housing (LIH) development. If state representative and real estate broker Valoree Swanson (R) gets her way, affordable housing developers will have to jump through hoops to build low-income homes, potentially making housing opportunities for poor people few and far between.

Supportive Housing's Catch-22 for Single Parents on Welfare

The shortage of affordable housing doesn't just put some Canadian families in constant stress and fear of outright homelessness -- it can also contribute to breaking families up, or keeping them apart.

That's what happened to single mom Blaine Clayton.

In 2013, Clayton was struggling. Sharing a BC Housing subsidized two-bedroom apartment with her two boys under the age of eight, the young mother was, by her own admission, drinking so heavily that the Ministry of Children and Family Development took the boys into care.

Toronto detached homes soon only for the wealthy: Report

RBC says that if current trends continue, single detached homes in Toronto and Vancouver will soon be firmly in the luxury housing segment, available only to wealthy households.

In its latest housing affordability report, RBC says trends continued to vary widely between the country’s various real estate markets in the fourth quarter of last year.

Housing in Vancouver, Toronto 'dangerously unaffordable,' says RBC

Housing in Canada remains affordable — unless you want a single family detached home in Toronto or Vancouver, according to the RBC housing affordability measure.

There's been a marked erosion of affordability in Vancouver and Toronto, where housing is approaching the "dangerously unaffordable" level, according to Royal Bank economists. That situation is likely to continue as long as the demand for single family homes outstrips the supply.

NYC Is Completely Unaffordable, But New Yorkers Are In Denial

Here’s more evidence that New York City is unaffordable for most people -- but that they'll probably keep living there anyway.

Just over half of New Yorkers are either “just getting by” or finding it difficult or very difficult to manage their finances, according to a New York Times/Siena College Poll released this week.  Of those with household incomes under $50,000, almost three-quarters are just getting by or having difficulties. Surprisingly, 17 percent of respondents with household incomes over $100,000 gave this answer.

Revealed: the widening gulf between salaries and house prices

The gap between income and house prices has sky-rocketed so much in the last 20 years that even in the most affordable regions of England and Wales buyers are forced to spend six times their income, a new data analysis reveals.

The situation is most dire in the capital, where the median house now costs 12 times the median London income.

Tenants in San Francisco Fight Back Against Nuisance Evictions

Leaving a stroller in the hallway. Hanging laundry out a window. Living with a new roommate. These everyday activities have now become eviction-worthy offenses in the eyes of some landlords in San Francisco, who are using low-fault or nuisance evictions over issues like these to chase long-term tenants out of rent-controlled units. The city's tenants, however, are refusing to go down without a fight.

Dozens of tenants, tenants' advocates and property owners crowded into San Francisco City Hall to share testimony about their evictions and discuss a tenant-protection bill at a San Francisco Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee hearing on July 27.

Rental Woes: Prices Jump, Vacancy Shrinks For Vancouver, Toronto

After a trying search, Jacob Butula has finally found a place to rent in Vancouver. But the apartment on the top floor of a house is far from ideal. Only a sheet separates his room from the living room that he will soon share with three roommates.

One roommate has promised to build him a makeshift wooden wall to replace the sheet. But it still means everyone living there will have easy access to his room.

Cheap Rentals Near Transit Hubs Face Wave of Demolition

Dennis McDonald rented in Coquitlam for less than a year, but his area meant a lot to him. It was close to amenities and the Lougheed SkyTrain Station. Neighbours were welcoming and colourful: large families, new immigrants, seniors with pets.

That's why he represented them at city hall when they learned all tenants had to leave.

With Metro Vancouver municipalities looking to house growing populations near transit hubs, Burquitlam and other up-and-coming areas are due for development. The problem is, older buildings with affordable housing like McDonald's have been targeted for demolition.

A Foot in the Door: For Aging Renters, Housing Costs Far from Fixed

Maxine Shearer "can't believe" it's been 25 years since she moved into her one-bedroom apartment in a "nice area of the West End."

"It's not one of the renovated ones" in her 19-story building, Shearer told me. "But it's not a bad apartment at all."

The British native -- who also has trouble believing she's 66 -- came to Canada at 18 and lived in Toronto before moving to Vancouver in 1974. She'd never considered moving until a developer bought her building in 2013, and the city tripled height restrictions in her area.

A Foot in the Door: Millennial Families Priced Out of Cities

A lifelong Winnipegger, 33-year old Oanh Pham feels she's always walking a "tight line" when it comes to housing, even in a city renowned for its relatively affordable market compared to the rest of the country.

Yet despite her University of Manitoba degree in psychology and business -- and years of experience managing volunteers for non-profits overseas and locally -- in some months the mother of one earns just $10 too much to qualify for income assistance, but still too little to pay all her bills.

Minister's Boastful Housing Claims Prove Shaky

To defend the British Columbia government's record on housing, Minister Rich Coleman has been making some big claims.

"Six years ago, there were 6,000 more people homeless in British Columbia than there are today," Coleman proclaimed in the provincial legislature on May 5.

"We live in the jurisdiction with the most successful housing strategy in North American history," he subsequently declared.

But neither claim stands up to scrutiny.

Stop Telling Me to Move to the Suburbs

Seems like every generation since the Second World War has had a reason to flock to the suburbs.

For some of our grandparents, it was racism, escaping from lower-income ethnic enclaves.

For our parents, it was a yard for us kids to play in and a respite from the supposedly crime-ridden cities.

For my generation? Housing prices, thanks to a skyrocketing real estate market and boomers that never seem to tire of telling us we have no choice but to go east, young wo/man.

Why we need affordable housing, not bachelor pads and empty homes

At a pace that defies reason and defies the local economy, the dream of affordable home ownership and affordable rental housing is slipping away from too many of us.

The problems we face are connected because housing is a continuum and pressures at the top affect prices all along the spectrum.

For young workers like me, or even families with two good incomes, we work hard but our dreams of a modest home will never materialize in this city. Many have already left and the eyes of many who remain now wander elsewhere.

Real estate woes: The secret lives of house-poor Canadians

They look like the family that has it all. Louise Edgerton, her partner, John Camus, and her 10-year-old daughter, Fianna, joke around while making brownies. They move around with ease in the gleaming white kitchen of the new dream home they designed themselves.

But for Edgerton, one financial setback could change everything. "I am discouraged, because I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's a little bit of a house of cards that could fall down at any time," she says.

Hundreds protest government inaction on real estate

“How can we be expected to compete for homes, condos and houses with the globe’s millionaires and billionaires?”Eveline Xia asked a crowd of several hundred gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Sunday.  The crowd included community groups and advocates who called for government action to address unaffordable real estate in Vancouver.

In March, Xia posted on Twitter the hashtag #Donthave1million to express her frustration about the crisis in affordable housing that has been creeping up the income brackets and affecting full-time professionals who can't afford to stay in Vancouver.

Housing Crisis Looms As Affordable Units Disappear: Report

OTTAWA - The country has a looming housing problem that is going to require action from all levels of government, according to a new report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The study says the long, steady decline in federal subsidies for social housing has left provinces, territories and municipalities struggling against market forces that are making it increasingly difficult for low- and modest-income renters.

"With 850,000 lower-rent units lost in the last decade, our rental sector is ill prepared for any downturn in the housing market," Brad Woodside, the president of the FCM, says in the introduction to the study.

'At My Age, All I Expect Is a Place to Live'

On the rooftop of her seven-storey Union Street apartment complex, 84-year-old Sam Kiu Chan inspects her raised garden beds full of leafy greens.

The sun has just set and the view from atop Chan's residence of two decades, Solheim Place, is of the warm city lights of old Chinatown beneath a dark blue sky.

With 86 units of purely social housing, and rents set at 30 per cent of tenants' income before taxes, Solheim Place is one of the largest rent-geared-to-income projects in the neighbourhood. For Chan and the 60 other seniors who share the building with low-income families and people with disabilities, access to guaranteed affordable housing is essential to scraping by every month.