In the last few years the cost of rental accommodation in Halifax has gone into the stratosphere for most people. The cost to buy does not seem to have increased at the same rate, but is affected by location, and peninsula Halifax is still very pricey. The rental rates on the other hand have seen lack of availability and pressure for units which has in turn allowed the landlords (do they collude?) to jack up rents a lot. The rents have increased, in every area connected by reasonable transit, to downtown. Once you pass Musquodoboit Harbour, heading east from Halifax, you can buy a house for under $100,000 and, closer to the city, for under $200,000, but that does not help that rents, in the city, where the jobs are, are high - un-affordably high.
When we moved to Halifax in 2005/6 (it was a process -- took us a year to get it done!) one of the things I said to people was that house prices dropped precipitously once one left the centre, and so you could still buy a house, in the region, for a reasonable price. There were expensive neighbourhoods but there were still also lots of neighbourhoods that were not considered THAT desirable and so were less expensive. Whereas nothing was affordable for literally 100's of kilometers in southern Ontario! We were very happy to be able to buy a house in Lawrencetown with an ocean view for far less than downtown.
Not sure why Halifax became more desirable. But the pressure for housing, esp rental housing, has been rising, and the price rising even faster. Apparently much of it is in migration from other parts of Canada, but also the world, as we attract and keep more Int'l graduates from all the N.S. degree granting institutions. Also - we have almost no public housing with years long wait lists. The private sector tends to build "luxury accommodation" if they build rental, (with high rents and well resourced tenants) not affordable buildings and they want to make as large a profit as possible from people's housing. THAT is the problem. So available stock is too low and prices are too high.
A few years ago in Spryfield or Dartmouth North it was not that hard to find a one bedroom apt for something between $500 and $800. MY grand children and their mother lived in a three bedroom for $800 ($950 when they left, third floor - no elevator - but immediately put up substantially, as there are NO controls on rents here - except it can only be raised once every twelve months on the same tenant.) Minimum wage has not kept up with increases in rent. Now around $1100 is about the cheapest until you go into an area that requires a car to get around. Minimum Wage is $12.55/hr - if you get 40 hours a week (and that leaves out a lot of people who cannot work more than one job at a time, or who have not got child care) - that is about $2175 per month - if taxes are at 30% that leaves you about $1500. A transit pass is $82. and rent is going to take $1100 of that (assuming you do not have children and need more than a 1 bedroom.) So that leaves about $200 for food, medicine, school fees, etc etc. If rent was lower, people would not struggle so hard. Searching today (June 2nd 2020) on Kijiji - there was one apt. for $1095 in Dartmouth (actually looked nice but has been for rent for 40 days so must be some problem - or no one is moving during COVID - also possible) and literally NOTHING ELSE under $1100!
Just one more thing - rents are now so high that even middle class, but single Mom, teachers and nurses cannot find or afford to rent these days - not without difficulty - and even in communities on the periphery (that's just FB data as friends look for a place they can afford)
Anyway this is not meant to be about rents and home prices directly. . . instead I was thinking about the people that have to move out of and possibly far away from their neighbourhoods and/or live with large numbers of people in small spaces.
One of the "side effects" of driving people with lower incomes out of neighbourhoods (and in the case of Halifax - I guess low income people will be driven to shelters - cause there is no place to go! and shelters are bad for COVID) - Their/Your neighbourhoods - the place where you may have friends or even family, where you know the people that provide services, where you know you can count on your neighbours to help you - you will have to leave. Whether it is a ride, borrowing items, or watching the kids for a while, or coming together for holidays and celebrations, just knowing how long you can sit with one cup of coffee, and where to get the best ? . . . When you have to move because you can no longer afford the rent - you lose not just your housing but potentially all of these other connections as well. That can include friends.
So North End Dartmouth (I horn in on that community 'cause mine is a mall and highrises - on the border) has a real neighbourhood spirit/character. The neighbourhoods "between the bridges" is for lack of a better word - poor and middle class - but neighbourly, and filled with self-help.
There is the family centre and the food centre - now called North Grove (recent name change) The Library and community centre and the Local MLA (Susan Leblanc) is a community focused, very smart, social justice seeking, peach of a woman who helps do it all.
Last summer there was a "neighbourhood play". . . that wandered through the community.
There are "community gardens" where the food centre grows food - but some boxes are just for anyone from the community to "pick" from. . .
Imagine, then having to move to a different neighbourhood away from your friends, your garden, your weekly get together's (there is a Dartmouth north knitting circle, parenting drop ins, and more!) and all the things that you have helped build and taken advantage of, in your community. The restaurant you like with reasonable prices and where the serving staff know you and your likes and dislikes.
A community with a lot of low-middle income people. So now, it is the closest to "the peninsula" (just a bridge or ferry ride away - think Brooklyn to Manhattan) AND now everyone seems to be contributing to the gentrification of the area. Buying houses and renting all the apts. On the one hand its great but it drives up rents. And if it takes a professional to rent an apt. in Dartmouth North - where are the income assistance, low income, working poor etc to go? It adds pressure to the lack of affordable housing.
Halifax is late to the game of high rents and evictions and renovictions. A word I added to my vocabulary within the last year. With no rent controls, and no controls on property speculators, things are booming for the landlords. In other big cities in Canada like Toronto and Vancouver - they put in controls on property speculation/owner non-residents. The speculators had to find other possibilities. Montreal was first with rents spiking massively once Vancouver and Toronto put in place rules to try and shut down speculators. We seem to be next.
So I watch in horror as people cannot afford to live any longer in "their community", and often have no idea what happens to people, some who I saw regularly, who got "renovicted". Not friends, necessarily, but other regular folks out and about in the community. I believe the evictions have stopped for the moment (COVID has meant holding no hearings to make them legal) but I fear for the community post-COVID. Worried landlords are still looking to throw on some paint, raise rents and drive people out of their communities. The very character that makes those communities attractive will be eroded. This commodification-writ-large in housing - is simply not sustainable. We are very quick to complain about healthcare in the U.S. but in Canada, we have healthcare, (some and maybe less on reserve) but way too many people on the street, in shelters, crowded into small units with too many people, and suffering trauma from the anxiety that you and your children, or your mother, or the love of your life, will have no place to live! Can I make the rent? IMagine the numbers asking at this time.
Just a side rant on landlords esp "commercial landlords" who did not take up the loan program to help small business get through the plague shut down - almost no landlords took it - it involved them giving up 25% of the rent, gov't providing 50% (but getting rent) but most just prefer to to say no - I am owed 100% - blood from a stone? too bad! Landlords really are the scum of the earth. (I am not directing this at people who rent out a basement suite to pay the mortgage but hope you are being reasonable in this unreasonable time or you can be a cockroach along with the big commercial outfits!)
We need to remove housing from "markets", and speculation, (same with food and power and internet and phones and water - basically, necessities to live should not be marketed "commodities". But that is a long way off -- or maybe not - now's the time!!??) and simply make housing guaranteed for all.
As a start, we need housing first, rent controls, mortgage backing & down payments for new co-ops, and new public (govt'ment owned and managed) housing. That is - we have to control the rents on what we have, and start building housing - through coops and public housing. No more subsidies to landlords (except as short term interim til housing is built) Oh and we better include housing for seniors and improved (single rooms for starters) LTC which means building new buildings.
Why, when money is available for "job creation" is it always roads and bridges? Why not daycare and housing? We need a massive injection into public and co-op housing, (and LTC), rent controls, and to stop housing as a "market commodity."
