As executive director for Chimo Community Services, Diane Sugars has seen a steady increase in families and seniors, in particular, falling into homelessness and volatile housing situations over the past four years.

“People are experiencing financial difficulty related to housing. They’re spending the majority of income on rent.

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More seniors are at risk. These are things we haven’t seen before,” said Sugars.

Simply put, rents are skyrocketing, and there’s few places to rent, said Sugars, whose non-profit group specializes in family and personal crisis services, but over the past few years reports dealing more and more with housing as a specific cause of such crisis.

The breakdown of the extended family is also occurring. Increasingly, young adults are having children and pushing their senior parents out the door, as they’re unable to support them, said Sugars.

Another consequence of Richmond’s affordable housing crisis is young, single-moms being forced into precarious housing situations.

She said a lack of government support to find subsidized housing for women is resulting in more situations where the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development is making inquiries to remove the women’s children from their custody.

Meanwhile, Metro Vancouver’s homeless population has grown 30 per cent over the past three years, according to a recent count by the regional government. The proportion of seniors grew from 18 to 23 per cent.

“It’s not just government we need to look to for answers. The entire community needs to step up. We need basement suites, lane houses; developers need to step up,” said Sugars.