Majority of B.C. residents report spending at least 50% of household income on housing: poll

Habitat for Humanity released the results of its second annual nationwide housing poll on Wednesday. As usual with housing-related polling in Canada, the results were grim. Also as usual, they were particularly grim in B.C.

More than half of B.C. respondents to the survey – which was conducted by Leger – said they spend more than 50 per cent of their income on housing, either rent or mortgage payments.

Fifty-three per cent of B.C. residents said this. The national average was 49 per cent.

Julia Deans, president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity Canada, said this finding was one that stood out to her.

"It's supposed to be 30 per cent or less," she told CTV News.

"The number should be that nobody is spending more than 30 per cent of their household income on housing, because of course that means that you've got less of your household income to spend on the other things that are essential. That could be food, it could be transportation, it could be heating."

Deans said her organization commissioned the poll in hopes of gathering information that will be valuable to it and its partners across the country working on affordable housing "of all types."

"Last year revealed some pretty troubling attitudes and that people were quite depressed about the state of affordable housing in Canada, and this year we saw that it worsened," she said.

More than four in five B.C. respondents (83 per cent) said owning a home in their community is almost impossible. Nationally, 72 per cent held this view.

And nearly everyone thinks things are getting worse, rather than better. Ninety-four per cent of British Columbians said the goal of owning a home in Canada is "getting harder and harder to reach." In B.C.'s largest city, 91 per cent said they expect the cost of housing – like everything else – will continue to increase.

The list goes on. Nine-in-ten British Columbians (91 per cent) believe rent is unreasonably high in their communities. That's the highest of any region in Canada. The national average is 86 per cent.

Vancouver residents are more likely than those living in the nation's other big cities to say they worry about being renovicted, with 43 per cent expressing this fear.

'SOME CAUSE FOR HOPE'

Despite all this negativity, though, Deans and her organization also see reason to be optimistic in the results.

Nearly seven in 10 Canadians surveyed – 69 per cent – disagreed with the notion that "there isn't much that can be done to deal with Canada's housing problems."

"That gives us some cause for hope, because they believe that it's possible to make change," Deans said. "They don't believe people are doing enough – particularly government – but they do believe that change is possible."

She added that she believes Canadians now understand their country has a housing problem in a way they haven't in years past.

"People accept that we have a problem, which means that they can get involved in supporting the solutions," Deans said. "Maybe it's being a little less NIMBY in your neighbourhood, maybe it's supporting the politicians who are doing some of the big, heavy lifting on this."

She said Canada is short millions of homes, and needs to work on building more of every type of housing, "from transitional shelter on up." It also needs to work on repairing and maintaining its existing affordable housing stock, which too often gets redeveloped in ways that displace existing residents.

Habitat for Humanity's globally recognized brand is an asset when it comes to pushing for policy changes to improve housing affordability, Deans said. She specifically highlighted inclusionary zoning policies, streamlining municipal permitting and ensuring affordable housing construction projects are exempt from provincial and federal sales taxes as areas where her organization has been pushing for change.

"We are in a position to call out those things for ourselves, but also for our partners along the housing spectrum, and I think you'll see us continuing to do more and more of that," she said.

Leger conducted the survey online from Aug. 17 to 24 among 1,505 Canadian adults. The sample size in B.C. was 210.

A probability sample of 1,505 carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The margin of error for a sample of 210 is considerably larger – roughly 7 percentage points in either direction.