Article content

You think people wanting to buy a home in over-priced Metro Vancouver have it bad? The media have for years justifiably reported on their plight.

But what about low-income renters?

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Douglas Todd: No room for low-income renters in Metro Vancouver Back to video

A new national study has found that skyrocketing rents are pushing low-income renters out of 97 per cent of the country’s neighbourhoods. And nowhere is the situation more dire than Metro Vancouver.

A minimum-wage worker in Metro Vancouver would have to toil 112 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the region, or 84 hours a week to pay for a one-bedroom unit, according to the study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The extensive report on rental options across the country says that housing becomes “unaffordable” when individuals devote more than 30 per cent of their earnings to it, a threshold set by the federal government’s housing agency.

At that ratio, the study by senior economist David Macdonald determined, a resident of Metro Vancouver would have to haul in a salary of $27 an hour just to afford an average one-bedroom rental unit, or $35 an hour to finance a two-bedroom.