Shazelle Santana desperately wants to move from her one-bedroom apartment into a larger unit but has been unable to afford more space., Ont., resident says her seven-year-old son is growing fast and the family needs more room, but the surging cost of rent in the city has made it incredibly difficult to move.Here’s what it takes to buy a home in Canada’s ‘soul-crushing’ housing market
“I felt like that was quite feasible, had my goals and plans worked out,” she says. “And then in the past few years, I’m sitting here thinking it doesn’t matter what I do, I feel like it’s gonna be impossible now because of the prices.” The Tory government passed a new law shortly before the election campaign to speed up approvals and other building processes, but critics said it lacked bolder measures such as changing municipal zoning rules to allow more housing to be built aside from single-family homes.The New Democrats are promising to build 250,000 affordable rental homes operated by public, non-profit and co-op housing providers.
The 53-year-old woman, who currently lives with her partner in a rented house in Barrie, Ont., says she is now considering moving into a motel or going to live with her 26-year-old daughter so she doesn’t lose her new job as a custodians’ supervisor at a London hospital.“I have a job waiting, a good-paying job waiting … And I don’t have a place to move to,” she says.
She says she hopes to be able to save enough money to buy a mobile home one day, before she retires, because buying a property is not a feasible option anymore. Haan says the population increased in London by more than 10 per cent between 2016 and 2021, whereas the housing stock only went up 6.8 per cent.Jared Zaifman, the chief executive officer at London Home Builders’ Association, says supply in the city’s housing market can’t keep up with the increase in the population.