The issue of Saugeen Shores’ housing crisis was raised again at the February 14th Council meeting.
It is a crisis not only when it comes to home ownership but also when it comes to rentals in the community, which are few and far between given the vacancy rate of .5%.
The majority of rental units in Saugeen Shores have rents that range from $1,250 to $1,880 per month.
It has always been the standard that rent or mortgage payments should not exceed 30 per cent of income however, when considering those in the service industry making minimum wage, even renting has become unattainable.
For instance, a worker making $15.00 per hour, working 40 hours per week he or she would make $2,400 per month [BEFORE taxes, EI and CPP deductions]. If that same person has to pay for a two-bedroom apartment at $1,650, it would leave $754 to last the month for necessities such as food, medicine, daycare and gas to get to and from work … that is, assuming 40 hours full-time work per week. Unfortunately, many employers have also now gone to part-time employment. How is anyone supposed to support his or herself let alone a family? The solution is often having to work two or three jobs simply to ‘make ends meet’.
According to sources, owners of some local rental buildings have also applied for a 2022 rent increase of 4.2% which is over the annual provincial rate set at 1.2%. For many, the increase will force some to leave – for where, it’s unknown given the rental market that exists, or to share with others or return to living with family.
While the owners may site the increase is necessary for ‘improvements’ made, in many cases the ‘improvements’ have included simply repairing aging infrastructure.
With heating included in most rents, in one complex, a change that was made was to install motion-detection heating. In other words, no motion equals no heat. Therefore, while sleeping, there is no heat which, in a climate such as that in Saugeen Shores’ winters, it can mean very cold mornings.
At one time, Ontario had ‘rent control’ legislation. The Tenant Protection Act 1997 however, was enacted by the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris and, while the Act retained some selected rights and obligations contained in the previous Landlord and Tenants Act, it both repealed the Rent Control Act and removed the dispute resolution process of the Landlord Tenant Act from the Ontario court system, including evictions and rent increases, and assigned jurisdiction to a newly created body, the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal. The Tenant Protection Act was then repealed and replaced by the Residential Tenancies Act that also replaced the Rental Housing Tribunal with the Landlord and Tenant Board.
Premier Doug Ford’s Conservative Government then enacted legislation in 2018 such that rent control only applies to rental units created and occupied prior to November 15, 2018. It does not apply to new buildings, additions to existing buildings and most new basement apartments that are occupied for the first time for residential purposes after November 15, 2018.
The result of all these changes? The rental mess that everyone is now in the midst of.
When it comes to home ownership, the situation fares no better with an average home in Saugeen Shores now priced out of reach for many, particularly first-time home buyers.
According to the Realtors Association of Grey Bruce Owen Sound (RAGBOS), the average price of homes sold in the area in January 2022 was $756,039, an increase of 39.7% from January 2021.
The benchmark price for townhouse/row units was $464,100, a substantial increase of 40% compared to a year earlier, and the benchmark apartment price was $380,600, a jump of 35.2% from year-ago levels.
In addition, the total value of all home sales in January 2022 was $125.5 million, a substantial increase of 54.6% from the same month in 2021 and was also a new record for the month of January.
The number of new listings saw a sizeable gain of 20.7% from January 2021 with 210 new residential listings in January 2022, which was 10.2% above the five-year average but 14.1% below the 10-year average for the month of January.
Overall, active residential listings numbered 257 units on the market at the end of January, down by 9.8% from the end of January 2021. Active listings haven’t been this low in the month of January in more than three decades.
While it’s a sellers market, those who do sell hoping to make a profit, often find that finding another home may end up to be more costly.
With rising housing prices fuelled by low interest rates, a low inventory of properties and home buyers from large urban centres looking to re-locate, there doesn’t seem to be an end in site any time soon for the housing crisis. Although all levels of government have come to recognize the urgency of the situation and are grappling at finding solutions, the wheels of bureaucracy, more often than not, turn very slowly.
