Ontario is leading the country in terms of the number of renters spending half or more of their income on housing, and it’s a problem that’s not confined to urban centres.

That’s the takeaway of the Canadian Rental Housing Index, which has unveiled a new rental housing tool its creators hope will make it easier for some voters to decide how they can make a difference at the polls in next month’s federal election.

The index has broken down how much of their overall income Canadians are spending on rent across all 338 federal ridings. Those findings, along with an interactive search tool, were released Tuesday.

Of the 20 ridings with the highest proportion of renters spending 50 per cent or more of their income on housing, 11 are in Ontario, the index shows. Six are in British Columbia and the remaining three are in Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Quebec.

“Ontario has the worst five ridings for the entire country in terms of housing affordability, said Marlene Coffey, chief executive officer of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association, speaking to the media at the YWCA Toronto Elm Centre, at Elm and Elizabeth Sts., on Tuesday morning. She said the province has been “hit harder than anywhere else in the country.”

But “this isn’t an isolated issue,” Coffey said. “There are communities in need from coast to coast to coast.”

The Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association was part of a coalition of national housing providers that contributed to the report, including the BC Non-Profit Housing Association (co-founders of the index), the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association and the Aboriginal Housing Management Association. The data was sourced from Statistics Canada and pulled from the results of the 2016 long-form census.

Coffey said the goal was to create a tool that both government and voters could use to understand the realities renters are facing in each of the country’s federal ridings.

“Affordability is not a big-city problem anymore,” Coffey told the Star.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. defines housing as affordable if 30 per cent or less of an individual’s income goes toward rent. What the index showed was that countrywide, 40 per cent of Canadians are spending above that amount. When it comes to people under 30 years of age, 44 per cent are paying more than 30 per cent on rent.

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Among the Ontario ridings where renters pay what the report defines as a state of crisis: Willowdale, where close to four out of 10 households are paying 50 per cent or more of their total income on rent; and Thornhill, where slightly more than three out of 10 residents also pay half or more of their income on housing.

That same financial pressure applies to approximately three out of 10 renters in Richmond Hill, Markham-Unionville, University-Rosedale, King-Vaughan, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, and Mississauga Centre.

“When a household is under that kind of financial pressure, there are of course choices,” Coffey said, noting that include between food and rent.

The coalition outlined three key steps they said must be taken by the next government in power. First, a distinct strategy focused on the housing needs of Indigenous peoples, in rural and urban areas, and governed by Indigenous peoples.

Ottawa also needs to seek out a new suite of tools to boost the supply of affordable housing and add more funding to repair existing stock. Finally, they said, any affordability measures including subsidies should be extended in perpetuity.

The authors of the report have also identified single mothers as being among the groups feeling the most housing pressure, along with Indigenous households, young people, immigrants and seniors.

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At least half of single mothers across the country are putting 30 per cent of their total income toward housing. Of that group, 22 per cent are reported to be at a “crisis level of spending” or putting half or more than half of their total income toward housing costs.

Included in that group is Krystal Joseph, who dreams of becoming a social worker. For now, most of her energy is spent raising two small children and juggling three jobs so she can cover the rent on their two-bedroom Toronto apartment.

“Day to day it’s crazy,” said Joseph, 27, whose $1,680 rent absorbs at least half of her income. “Sometimes I barely even have money to go to work for these odd jobs.”

Joseph migrated to Toronto from Antigua in 2017 while pregnant with her second child. Shortly after her arrival she found out the housing she had been counting on had fallen through. She ended up at Nellie’s, an emergency shelter that advocates for women and children and assists with education and finding housing, for 14 months.

For Joseph, paying the bills means weekend hours at St. Michael’s Homes, an agency that helps men with addictions heal and find housing, then weekday work as a dispatcher for school bus drivers from 6 a.m. to noon followed by temporary reception work until 3 p.m.

The first thing she always pays is her rent, she said. Helping men like the ones at St. Michael’s find housing is why she wants to go to school, to better support people with complicated needs and few places to go.

Housing affordability is expected to be a key election issue as more and more Canadians struggle to find affordable rental housing and home ownership becomes increasingly unattainable for middle-income earners.

Canada’s National Housing Strategy launched under current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal leader’s early election promises include a first-time homebuyers incentive, with the government covering up to 10 per cent of the price to be paid back once it’s sold.

The New Democratic Party has promised to build “500,000 new units of affordable housing starting right away, and dealing with the speculation and money laundering that fuel skyrocketing housing prices,” according to information posted on the party’s website.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer pledged, during a recent meeting with the Star’s editorial board, that their yet-to-be-released platform would include “concrete measures” designed to making life more affordable, particularly for young families. Those measures have not been released.

The Green party has suggested the creation of a federal housing minister to better oversee the national strategy and set a target to build 25,000 new units and rehabilitate 15,000 annually over 10 years, based on a platform posted online.

Joseph, when asked what the federal government could do to improve things, said there needs to be better transitional housing options so people can move up a scale and toward ownership. Canada sells itself as a nation ready to welcome people in need, Joseph said, but based on her own experience and what she sees working with vulnerable people, more needs to be done.

“They say we welcome all people? Where are you going house them? What is the plan?”

Correction – Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2019: This article was updated from a previous version that erroneously referred to the YWCA Toronto Elm Centre as the YMCA Toronto Elm Centre.