Housing

Greater Vancouver suffers from a significant shortage of affordable housing. A recent international survey ranked the Greater Vancouver housing market at the 15th most expensive market in the world (6)!

According to the survey, median housing prices were 6.6 times median incomes (6)! It is commonly accepted that one should only spend one-third of one’s income on housing. Considering that average monthly rent in the GVRD in 2004 was $821, one would need to earn about $30,000 per year for this to be affordable (7). In fact, one in three renters in Greater Vancouver are deemed to be in “core need” by the GVRD, with average annual incomes of only about $18,000 (7).

For welfare recipients the situation is dire. Singles are allotted $325 per month for housing, while average monthly rent for a bachelor apartment in East Vancouver is $589 (8). In 2001 the GVRD reported that over 126,500 people in 56,000 households across the GVRD are at-risk of homelessness (8). Many of these people rely on social housing and cheap hotel rooms to keep them off the streets.

The following links contain maps that illustrate Greater Vancouver's housing crisis.