Housing rental costs in Alberta are rising at the fastest pace in more than five years and are escalating in Calgary at more than double the national rate, according to a new report.

At the same time, the Calgary Housing Corp., which operates and manages subsidized and affordable housing units, has a growing wait list that ballooned by more than 800 people to 3,518 in September.

Homeless shelters across Alberta say they’re experiencing a crisis and are calling on the governments for both immediate help and a long-term plan to bolster affordable housing, as facilities are reporting no spare beds and a jump in the length of time people are staying at emergency facilities.

“Our housing system is completely stressed all over the place,” said Coun. Brian Pincott, chair of the Calgary Housing Corp. board.

“It means that in a booming economy, people are coming to Calgary and they cannot find anywhere to live and they’re landing in the shelters and they’re landing on the streets ... There’s nowhere for people to go.”

While Pincott said there’s no one single way to fix the affordable housing problem in Calgary, the councillor and others say approving secondary suites is a piece of the solution.

Trent Bancarz, a spokesman for Alberta Seniors, which oversees housing, said the province is certainly aware of the housing pressures in Alberta and has programs in place, including rent supplements and funding for affordable housing spaces.

“The difficult challenge is these things are constantly moving targets and it’s sometimes very hard to match the resources to what’s happening because it changes so quickly,” he said.

Bancarz said a provincial housing strategy will be developed, as directed in the minister’s mandate letter, and 4,500 affordable housing spaces are expected to be built across the province in the next two years.

“Since 2007, the province has helped fund the development of 12,000 affordable housing spaces ... of these about 7,500 are ready now and people are living in them,” he said.

New data from BMO show rent in Alberta rose at 3.1 per cent year-over-year in September, the fastest pace in more than five years and ahead of the 1.5 per cent national rate.

In Calgary, the increase was 3.4 per cent, while in Edmonton it was 2.8 per cent, and Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, doesn’t expect rents to decrease anytime soon.

“I would anticipate rents continuing to rise faster in Alberta than across the rest of the country,” he said.

“They reflect a very tight housing market, a very strong demand for a place to live. Builders are trying to keep up with demand but in many cases they’re not successful, so the knock-on effect is rising house prices and rents.”

For several years, the Calgary Housing Corp. has had more than 3,000 people on its wait-list for subsidized and affordable housing units.

The average wait-list in 2014 has been 3,342 and in September there were 3,518 people on the wait-list — the largest number of Calgarians waiting for affordable housing in at least 21 months.

“The reality is that there has been more people looking for housing than we’re able to respond to for some period of time now,” said Darren Nimegeers, spokesman for the Calgary Housing Corp.