Four out of every 10 renting households in Canada spent almost a third of their income on rent, above the level that experts say is sustainable, affordable housing advocates said Thursday
Six affordable housing groups across the country Thursday unveiled the Rental Housing Index, an in-depth look at the finances of Canadian renters.
Based on data culled from Statistics Canada from 2011, the interactive, map-based index looks at the state of affairs in Canada's rental market. Despite constant headlines that seem to suggest home ownership is a Canadian obsession, more than four million households in Canada rent — that's about 30% of all the households in Canada.
While homeowners in many markets are keenly aware of rising prices in recent years, the numbers Thursday suggest renters aren't immune to the increasing cost of housing.
The problem is especially acute in some of Canada's biggest cities. In Toronto, the group says there are 105,215 rental households that spend more than half of their total income on rent. That's more than one out of every five renters in the city.
The ratio is based on gross income, which means the amount of money being spent on housing costs is actually even higher when one considers after-tax income.
In Vancouver, 136,025 households spend almost a third of their income on rent, and almost a quarter of the city's renters spend half their money on rent.
Montreal may be the most rental-heavy city in the country, due to rents that were for a long time comparatively low for a city of its size. But those days are long gone, the data suggests. Close to 60% of the city's residents are renters, but more than one out of every five — or 108,875 in total — are spending half of their income on rent.
Nationally, 40% of renters spend almost a third of their income on rent, and almost one in five spent half their money on it. Affordable housing experts say a ratio that high puts them at high risk of becoming homeless, which costs the broader system a lot to address down the line for things like health care and other social services, in addition to a long-term erosion of the tax base.
