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Skyrocketing rents and dwindling affordable-housing units in Vancouver are driving seniors to the brink of homelessness, forcing some to couch surf, seek roommates or even live in cars, advocates say.

While the debate over the city’s housing crisis often focuses on millennials, people who work with seniors say elderly adults have lower incomes and fewer supports to withstand being displaced from their homes.

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“People end up living on the streets, or living in their cars, or crashing with friends, sleeping on the couch,” said Linda Forsythe, a board member of 411 Seniors Centre Society.

“That used to happen a lot with young people,” she said. “They could tolerate it quite well, and sort of get on with their lives, whereas, with older people, you don’t have a chance to make more money. That’s the problem.”

Seniors are enduring the same rent hikes as other tenants in Vancouver, but have disproportionately lower incomes and higher medical costs. A provincial grant to help elderly renters has not kept pace, and subsidized units have decreased, experts say.