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VICTORIA — Esquimalt resident Rosemary Collins is frustrated with a choice that seems increasingly common: affordable housing or keeping her dog.

At 70, Collins says her rent is eating up her retirement income, but she doesn’t want to surrender her seven-year-old Australian kelpie, Tipper, to move to a more affordable place.

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“It’s a struggle. It’s a struggle every single month,” Collins said. “But she’s my exercise therapy dog, she’s kept me out of a wheelchair until now.”

Collins is among a group of citizens calling on Housing Minister Selina Robinson to change the Residential Tenancy Act to eliminate the “no-pets” policy.

According to the act, a landlord can prohibit pets or restrict them based on size, kind or number, plus identify a tenant’s obligations in respect to keeping the pet on the property.

A landlord can also collect a pet damage deposit.

Collins considers herself lucky to have gotten into her current apartment two months before the landlord put a no-pets policy into effect for new tenants. But at $800, her rent eats up almost half of her $1,800 monthly retirement income, so she put her name on a list for subsidized housing.