A man in St. John’s rents office space, but doesn’t have an office job.
He’s an electrician who drives around all day. He secretly sleeps in the office at night because he can’t afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the city. For two months during the bitter Newfoundland and Labrador winter, he lived in his truck. Then, in February, he found an office space listed for rent for $450 a month.
“I’m doing this 100 percent secretly, I’ve lost hope of finding anything else,” the 37-year-old told CBC News.
CBC News agreed not to identify the man because it would put his fragile livelihood and job at risk. But he is one of many people across Canada who have contacted CBC News about how the cost of rent is affecting them and their living conditions.
Many of these people, like him, have full-time jobs.
Finding housing is a challenge with rising prices and declining availability, which is Canada’s rental housing crisis. Demand is outpacing supply across the country, with vacancy rates hitting a new low and average rent growth hitting a new high, according to the January rental market report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
According to a CBC News analysis of more than 1,000 neighbourhoods in Canada’s largest cities, less than one per cent of rental housing is vacant and affordable for most renters. CBC’s Nael Shiab presents a new online tool that reveals where you can afford to rent.
The average asking price for rent in Canada hit an all-time high of $2,202 per month in May, according to a June report from Rentals.ca.
The website screened apartment and townhouse/condo rentals, based on monthly listings from the Rentals.ca network of online listing services.
Its data covers both primary and secondary rental markets and includes basement apartments, rental apartments, shared ownership apartments, terraced houses, semi-detached houses and detached houses.
The situation where a full-time worker still can’t find an affordable rental option is becoming more common, said Annie Hodgins, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, a Toronto-based nonprofit.
Hodgins said Canadians who called the centre’s rental helpline a decade ago were mostly low-income or on welfare. But these days, calls are increasingly coming from people who work full time.
“This really reflects how astronomically high rental housing prices are. It’s a huge problem,” Hodgins told CBC News.
Workers out of price range
A recent CBC News analysis of more than 1,000 neighbourhoods in Canada’s largest cities found that less than one per cent of rental properties are vacant and affordable for the majority of renters in the country.
In October 2023, in the 35 urban areas analyzed by CBC News, there were just 1,400 vacant or one-bedroom homes in neighbourhoods that full-time workers on minimum wage could afford. CBC calculated affordability based on rent and utility costs remaining below 30 per cent of household gross income, a benchmark set by CMHC in 1986.
Last year, a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in 2023 noted that there is not a single province where minimum wage workers can afford an apartment.
“They are more likely to spend too much on rent, live in too small units, or in many cases, both,” the report notes.
An electrician in St. John’s earns more than minimum wage, earning $20 an hour and working 40 hours a week.
He said he moved to St. John’s a few years ago and had a place to live, but after meeting his girlfriend, they wanted something bigger when their lease was up. He said he had an apartment ready, but the landlord rented it out to someone else. He was soon single and living in his truck.
“It was cold,” he admitted.
He said he could probably afford to pay about $750 a month for rent. But anything he could find in his price range was either already rented or a room in a “house full of college students.” According to Rentals.ca, the average rent in St. John’s is currently $1,060 a month. Nothing goes under $850.
Then he saw the office menu.
The man sleeps on a futon mattress and says he eats “a lot of chips and pizza slices” that he can microwave. When he needs to take a shower, he laughs and says he has a “bird bath” in the sink.
He said it was actually a great deal for $450 a month – as long as he didn’t get caught.
“I feel really lucky to have what I have,” he said, adding that he has a one-year lease and will try to stay as long as possible.
With rents at record highs, Canadians are struggling to find affordable family housing. CBC’s Evatt Brind tells the tragic story of the Ward family — and their search for a solution.
Rental crisis spreads outside major cities
“The number of people who are working full-time and can’t afford rent is a big concern,” Aled Ab Iorwirth, deputy chief economist at the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation, told CBC News.
While the rental crisis is a more specific problem in major urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver, it’s spreading from there as people look for affordable rents farther and farther away, he said.
“It’s a widespread problem,” said Ab Iorwerth, adding that the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation is concerned that there isn’t enough rental housing being built because of high interest rates.
People will make sacrifices to ensure they can afford their rent, including cutting back on food and medicine, said Hodgins of the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights. Young people may struggle to pay off their student loans, delay going back to school or starting families — all to pay rent or because of a lack of space, she added.
The crisis is affecting tenants’ health, mental health, relationships and families, and could push people to leave the community they depend on, Hodgins added.
“Housing is the center of your life, and when it is compromised, it has wide-ranging impacts,” she said.
But with “all eyes finally on this issue,” Hodgins says she also sees reason for optimism. She says her organization knew there was a crisis a decade ago, but no one talked about it.
“At the very least, people care.”
