A 'hopeless' feeling: Struggling seniors face sky-high rents and few, if any, options
Slightly more than 1/5th of Canada's seniors who live in private dwellings are renters
Ron Sept is getting desperate.
He can't afford a car, his prescription medications, eyeglasses or new clothes, he said. He's stopped eating meat to save on groceries, which he can only buy with the money his son living overseas sometimes sends him. If you visit him in his one-bedroom apartment in Nanaimo, B.C., you'd have to sit on the floor, because he has one chair and no table.
Sept, 70, said he's depressed, especially since giving up the antidepressant he can't afford without insurance coverage. He's also anxious, lonely and said his health is suffering.
Why? Because 95 per cent of his pension goes to his $1,650 rent, leaving him with about $100 in his bank account each month for all other expenses. The amount, he said, is "ridiculously inadequate."
"Having to go crawling to family members on my hands and knees ... it puts people in such a difficult situation. And I think people who have lots of money don't really have any clue of what it's like to live without," Sept told CBC News.
"I don't have anywhere to go, I don't have anything to do, I don't know anybody here, so most of the time I just sit around in an apartment I can't really afford and worry."
Sept, who was a self-employed business consultant until recently, reached out to CBC News because he wanted his story shared. He is one of the many seniors who struggle to pay rent amid the rental housing crisis gripping the country.
With surging prices and decreased availability, finding housing has become daunting. Less than one per cent of rentals are both vacant and affordable for the majority of the country's renters, a recent CBC News analysis of more than 1,000 neighbourhoods across Canada's largest cities found.
That situation becomes more dire for Canada's growing population of seniors, many of whom say they hope to age at home but face soaring housing costs on a fixed income, often leaving them financially vulnerable.
Slightly more than one-fifth of Canada's seniors who live in private dwellings, 21.5 per cent, are renters, according to Statistics Canada data.
Senior renters deal with unaffordable housing at a higher rate than the total renter population, the agency notes, with 38.8 per cent of renters age 65 and over spending more than 30 per cent of their income on shelter costs — the benchmark for affordability set by the CMHC in 1986.
In comparison, 27.2 per cent of the total renter population lived in unaffordable housing. While that proportion decreased since 2016 for all populations, seniors still live unaffordably in higher rates — as the average price of rent continues to climb.
"Financially vulnerable seniors in particular are facing a real crisis when it comes to rental rates because their ability to respond to the increase is in many cases limited," Alyssa Brierley, executive director of the National Institute on Ageing, a public policy institute at Toronto Metropolitan University, said in an interview.
"And the impact of not being able to do that is devastating."
Few available and affordable options
There are approximately 7.6 million people aged 65 and over living in Canada.
The median total income for those Canadians was about $35,700 in 2023, according to CBC's analysis of Statistics Canada data. That's well below the Canadian individual median income for renters of $45,069, again calculated by CBC based on Statistics Canada data.
Using the $35,700 median income and the 30 per cent benchmark, any average shelter cost above $893 for vacant units is considered unaffordable for seniors. Shelter costs include rent and other services (such as water and electricity).
That means only 0.16 per cent, a fraction of a per cent, of all one-bedroom rentals are potentially affordable and vacant in all metropolitan areas CBC analyzed across the country.
Meanwhile, the average asking rent in Canada reached $2,185 in June, up seven per cent compared to a year ago, according to a new report by Rentals.ca. Vancouver; Burnaby, B.C.; and Toronto had the highest rents in Canada, with the average one-bedroom dwelling going for $2,724, $2,543 and $2,444 per month, respectively.
Older adults are more likely to be long-term renters, maybe living in the same unit for years paying below-market rent, Brierley said. This makes them more vulnerable to evictions and renovictions, she added, because landlords may be motivated to try to earn more for their units.
And when circumstances change, like a rent increase or renoviction, older adults are less likely to be able to weather significant financial shocks because they're on a fixed income, Brierley said. This means they're more likely to lose their housing completely.
For seniors, this means not just losing your housing, but your community and social connection, Brierley added.
"Housing is so very fundamental to living a life of dignity."
'This is where I wind up'
Shoshona Magill, 74, said she fears a major financial storm is blowing her way.
Magill is paying $2,200 per month for a "very small" basement apartment in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., after being renovicted twice in recent years. She said that's about 85 per cent of her income, between her pension and part-time work as an assistant buyer at the University of Waterloo.
To help cover her costs, Magill grows most of her own food in a community garden and cans it, saying that she grew up Mennonite and knows how to "pinch a penny four ways."
But now she said her work is becoming automated and she's likely to lose her job, and with it, her home. She won't be able to afford her rent, says there are no other affordable options and that she's unlikely to find a new job at her age.
Magill said she's applied for housing co-ops but was told there's a five-year waitlist. For apartments geared specifically to seniors, she said she's looking at 10 to 15 years before something opens up.
"Well, I may not be around that long," Magill told CBC News.
Out of options, she said she's considering living in a tent if she loses her job, at least in the warmer months. Or maybe she'll live in her car in the Walmart parking lot.
"It feels kind of hopeless," she said through tears.
"I've worked hard since I was 16 and this is where I wind up."
'Slapped in the face'
Sept, in Nanaimo, said his current situation feels like he was "slapped in the face," given that he worked for more than 40 years, first in communications and later as a business and management consultant.
He tries to find more contract work here and there, but said hardly anyone wants to hire a 70-year-old. Sept also just recently had to declare bankruptcy over back taxes.
"The older I get, the harder the slaps are."
Sept had been living more affordably in a previous rental unit, but said last year his landlord sold the house. He said it was less expensive to visit his children overseas and travel a bit than to pay rent in Nanaimo, so that's what he did for a few months, until money ran out.
When he came back, he looked for housing for five months while living in an AirB&B, a situation he called "massively stressful." There was so little available, prices were so high and even though he applied to live in shared accommodations, he was never picked to be anyone's roommate.
His current living situation, using nearly his entire income on rent and begging his family for handouts, isn't sustainable and far from desirable, he said, but he has no other options.
"I begin to think: 'What am I living for?'" Sept said, struggling to choke back tears.
"I'm breaking my back trying to stay alive. For what?"
If you or someone you know is struggling, here's where to get help:
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Canada's Suicide Crisis Helpline: Call or text 988.
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Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868. Text 686868. Live chat counselling on the website.
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Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre.
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This guide from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health outlines how to talk about suicide with someone you're worried about.
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With files from Nael Shiab, CBC News