VANCOUVER—In many ways, Coal Harbour is the picture of prosperity, the quintessential combination of natural views and cityscape that attracts so many people to live in Vancouver in the first place.

Except half the people who live there can’t afford to do so.

A StarMetro analysis of affordability in Metro Vancouver census tracts — the small, stable neighbourhood portions Statistics Canada measures — shows 30 per cent of people living in the median tract couldn’t afford their homes — already a high number that secures Vancouver as the least affordable Canadian city.

A tool released Tuesday by the BC Non-Profit Housing Association uses data from the 2016 census to visualize how much Canadians are spending on rent in municipalities across the country. It shows 23 per cent of Vancouver renters are spending more than 50 per cent of their monthly income on the roofs over their heads.

Read more: ‘Crisis of affordability’ for Toronto renters, report says

B.C. has the highest proportion of renters spending more than 50 per cent of their income on housing at 21 per cent. Ontario is a close second, with Toronto matching Vancouver’s crisis spending levels.

An analysis of census data shows how the crisis of affordability plays out at the neighbourhood level in Metro Vancouver. In addition to some people being “priced out,” large proportions are staying in or moving to neighbourhoods where they spend an unaffordable amount of their monthly budgets on housing.

Spending 30 per cent of monthly income or less on housing is considered affordable by the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation. By that standard, a single person making $3,000 per month could live affordably spending $900 per month on housing. A family with a combined income of $7,000 per month could spend $2,100 per month and still be within their means.

It’s become common in Vancouver, however, to spend much more than that.

Have your say

“The 30 per cent standard has been used for years,” said Penny Gurstein, director of UBC’s community planning department. But today “So many people are spending so much more of their income on housing than 30 per cent.”

Looking at the differences between neighbourhoods paints an even bleaker picture, where some neighbourhoods face much greater challenges than others.

The quarter of Metro Vancouver tracts with the least affordability problems have between 12 and 25 per cent of households who can’t afford their homes. The 25 per cent of tracts with the worst affordability problems, have between 35 and 61 per cent.

Nine of the worst-off tracts include more than 50 per cent of households that can’t afford their homes. They include two tracts on UBC endowment lands (61 per cent and 55 per cent), two tracts in the Downtown Eastside (55 per cent and 51 per cent), two tracts in Richmond’s downtown (54 per cent each), one tract in Coquitlam (52 per cent), one tract in Burnaby’s Metrotown (51 per cent), and one tract in Coal Harbour (50 per cent).

Unsurprisingly, data analysis shows neighbourhoods with many people in the low-income measure are more likely to have an affordability problem.

Gentrification can explain the problem in some cases. For example, Burnaby’s Metrotown is infamous for being gentrified, causing many lower-income tenants to be demovicted. But the problem isn’t limited to low-income areas.

Coal Harbour, which also ranks among the census tracts with the worst affordability problems, is a prosperous neighbourhood with only about 20 per cent of people living under the low-income benchmark — about the same as Metro Vancouver’s average.

Despite the financial crunch, there are reasons people continue to live in those neighbourhoods.

“It’s a beautiful place. There’s a reason why people still come here,” said Coal Harbour resident Suzanne O’Donoghue, who moved to the neighbourhood six years ago. “And I find the suburbs equally expensive.”

O’Donoghue said part of the reason people choose to live in her Coal Harbour neighbourhood is that the convenient location allows them to save time and money on transportation, even if they have to spend more on housing.

It’s not always a choice though.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“I have a lot of friends that may get to a point where they end up leaving,” O’Donoghue said. “I know people who’ve sold their house and moved north or to the island.”

It’s a decision she said she may also make one day. She quit her job a few years ago and has been spending more than 30 per cent of her monthly income on housing since.

For Metrotown Residents Association founder Rick McGowan, two “camps” in Metrotown explain the affordability struggle.

There are the low-income people renting less expensive units, who would be spending greater than a third of their income almost anywhere in Metro Vancouver.

And then there are those moving into Metrotown’s brand new condos, who, like some Coal Harbour residents, are choosing to spend more of their income on housing for the “tradeoff” of proximity to the SkyTrain and amenities found there.

Alex Operacz, a medical laboratory technician, has rented in the Metrotown area for 18 years. Being a long-term tenant has kept his housing costs “hovering” around that 30 per cent mark, but he knows that will change if he’s evicted to make way for more new condos.

“When I look to find homes on Craigslist or in the newspaper, everyone tells me that I’ll be paying at least twice as much as I did in the old place,” Operacz said. “Basically everything is going up except wages.”

McGowan said affordability is “a neighbourhood problem” and solutions need to be customized to those neighbourhoods.

City or region-wide plans to develop new housing for a growing population, which focus on areas close to the SkyTrain, should also factor in the needs of people already living there, McGowan argued.

For example, he argued developing Joyce-Collingwood, previously an industrial area, did not have as much of a negative neighbourhood impact as developing Metrotown, where existing tenants had already formed deep roots.

“For myself, I’m secure. But I want my kids to be able to stay in the neighbourhood,” McGowan said.

The community he has an eye on now is Edmonds, which he says is “thriving,” but could become a repeat of Metrotown’s woes if development becomes rampant there.

Regional data on affordability shows little change between 2011 and 2016, with slightly more than 30 per cent of households in Metro Vancouver spending an unaffordable amount. For McGowan, the region-wide picture of affordability is just a piece of the puzzle.

You don’t just live in your city, he said, “You live in your neighbourhood.”

Read more about: