When Halifax was running out of rental apartments in the mid-1980s
Low vacancy rate meant that in some areas, only 1 in 1,000 apartments was available
In 1985, it was getting hard to find a place to rent in Halifax.
The city had one of the lowest vacancy rates in the country, which meant hardly any apartments were up for grabs.
"In a healthy market, it's usually three or four per cent. But in Halifax, the vacancy rate is less than half of one per cent," the CBC's Jim Sunstrum told viewers on The National on Jan. 31, 1985.
"In some parts of town, only one apartment in 1,000 is vacant."
A complex problem
Sunstrum said many developers claimed they were reluctant to build more rental apartments, as a result of rent-control policies that were in place in Nova Scotia.
Another problem was the fact that some rental apartments were coming off the market, as developers knocked down old houses to build other kinds of projects — like condos.
A healthy job market was also bringing more people into Halifax, which was then driving demand up further for rental accommodations.
"We are seeing an influx of people into the Halifax market — people returning from out west, newcomers coming to the area in search of jobs," said William Fitt, a housing analyst with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
"The unemployment rate in Halifax is relatively low," he added.
No solution in sight
Sunstrum said the newcomers with jobs could generally afford to live in a hotel as they waited for an apartment to become available. But he said those with lower incomes were left scrambling if they couldn't afford to do the same.
Sister Virginia Turner, the director of a centre that aided homeless women, said people were finding they simply could not find an affordable place to live.
And that was after exploring every available option.
"I guess you would have to say it's a crisis," Turner said.
Worse still, Sunstrum said it didn't look like the rental apartment supply problem would be fixed during the 1980s.
"With almost no new rental construction, the experts are predicting the shortage will last the rest of the decade," he said.
