“Relentless demand, inadequate supply, surging rents, and growing concerns around affordability make this the most challenging rental environment in Peterborough’s history.”
That is just one finding of a housing report released in early December by the United Way Peterborough & District that explores the challenges with securing a place to call home in Peterborough and area.
Year-over-year Peterborough’s rental market continues to be tighter and more expensive, notes author Paul Armstrong in the 19th edition of the “Housing is Fundamental” report.
The report provides an analysis of Peterborough’s worsening rental market and “underscores the ongoing challenges posed by housing affordability and accessibility,” stated a media release about the document.
“Affordability” is defined as spending no more than 30 per cent of total before-tax income on housing. But with the average market rent in the Peterborough area now $1,325, that means a household has to make $53,000 for a rental unit to be “affordable.”
The report states this means there’s little, if any, affordable housing for people who have low incomes.
A significant portion of renter households are in “core housing need,” with some spending well in excess of 50 per cent of their household incomes on rent, the report found.
“Meagre” additions to the Peterborough CMA rental stock in 2023 mean hundreds of units are still required, with the demand for rental units far exceeding supply.
Meanwhile, Trent University and Fleming College place a substantial demand on the city’s rental market, the report notes. New immigrants and foreign students to the area require housing. Housing suitable to transition people out of homelessness is also needed.
According to the report, the housing and homelessness crisis has been mainly caused by governments withdrawing from providing public housing, leaving it to the for-profit market to provide housing.
“Governments will need to return to direct provision of social housing and render additional support for non-profit housing,” the report states. “We need to build more, much more. We need to make it more affordable. And greater density will likely result. All of this calls upon governments to assert a leading role.”
The document also points out that the maximum benefit for people receiving Ontario Works is $733 per month, but the average rent in Peterborough in 2023 for the smallest unit — a bachelor — was $877 per month. A single bedroom unit went for $1,173 while a two-bedroom apartment was $1,411, and a three-bedroom unit cost, on average, $1,640.
On a broader scale, the Canada-wide vacancy rate was 1.5 per cent as of October 2023, which was a new low, with Peterborough’s vacancy rate standing at one per cent. Recent renter households (43.2 per cent) were also more likely to live in unaffordable housing than existing renter households (30.5 per cent), with unaffordable housing meaning more than 30 per cent of pre-tax household income is spent on shelter costs.
“When inadequate supply of rental units produces a one per cent vacancy rate in Peterborough, something has to change,” Amstrong notes. “When housing costs are now the primary driver of inflation and 20 per cent of Canadian rental stock is owned by large capital enterprises, something’s inequitable. When homelessness grows, but social housing builds don’t materialize, something’s unjust. The housing crisis deepens with little indication of relief.”
On the other end of the scale, high ownership prices have prevented renter households from making the move to jp,eownership.
And, finally, 2023 saw an unprecedented period of multiple converging crises, which included homelessness, housing precarity, food insecurity, income precarity, mental health challenges, and addictions.
“Flawed government policy has resulted in profound crises in an otherwise prosperous country,” Armstrong states. “Clearly, the government’s chosen, market-driven model for housing provision and personal security has failed.”
To read the report and learn more about the call to action, visit uwpeterborough.ca/our-research/.
