The phone calls and emails started almost immediately, as we suspected they would.
The first round was prompted by a story published in the Times about a group of low-income seniors who are being relocated from their homes in a building operated by the Lions Society. In one case, a woman has lived there for more than 20 years.
The move is happening because the structure can no longer be maintained to a livable standard on the limited amount of rent the eight low-income tenants are able to pay.
There are concerns about bedbugs in the building they are being asked to move to, as well as fears among some that they will have to give up their pets.
The second story, about a group of tenants who explained that they feel they are effectively being pushed out of their low-income rentals so that their units can be offered at higher rates, also drew response in the form of more, similar stories.
It’s a huge and growing issue, not just in Langley, but across the Lower Mainland. We’d love to be able to tell each individual story, but space and time simply won’t allow it.
While each case is unique, what they have in common is that they are symptoms of a much larger housing crisis in southern B.C.
While people with healthy incomes struggle to buy a home, renters at all levels are finding themselves more and more at the mercy of landlords, with vacancy rates below one per cent in Greater Vancouver (according to CHMC, October 2015 data).
Perhaps the hot real estate market does have more building owners eyeing the bigger payday that redevelopment will bring. For better or worse, that’s the free market at work — supply and demand economics.
Or the reason might be far simpler.
In the case of the Lions Society, for example, their hands appear to be tied — there’s just not enough money to keep going.
If we assume, for argument’s sake, that each tenant pays the same (or close to) $355 per month in rent, they are working with a monthly income of around $2,840.
One would be hard pressed to operate, never mind physically maintain, an eight-unit building on that.
What’s the alternative? Raise the rent? There’s an old saying (perhaps you’ve heard it) about getting blood from a stone.
Disability assistance in B.C. allocates $375 for a single person to pay a month’s rent. That figure would be laughable in any part of the province, but here in the Lower Mainland, it’s criminal.
Responses from readers to both issues have ranged from expressions of sympathy and calls for the province to do more, to those who feel they’re losing enough of their income to taxation and aren’t thrilled at the idea of even more of their salary being taken from them.
It’s hard to blame people when they are trying to feed and house their own families, pay for gasoline, insurance and upkeep on a vehicle, which they will, in many cases, drive across a toll bridge on their way to and from work.
But if a society is judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members, then we’ve still got a lot of work to do. Supporting one another is a responsibility that comes with being a member of a community.
And in that respect, we’re falling short.
What’s the solution? Honestly, I’m not sure. Some say more development. But not everyone wants that, either.
Still, in a country as rich as ours, it makes no sense that everyone who wants it (even those with limited income) can’t find something as basic as a clean, safe, affordable place to call home.
Until that day comes, I suspect my phone will keep on ringing.
