NOWHERE TO GO: After a decade of renting Kelowna woman faces homelessness
In her mid-40s and on disability, a Kelowna renter is facing a daunting future.
After more than a decade of renting her spacious apartment, the landlord has sold the property so the woman now has the frightening task of finding somewhere new to live.
From paying $1,000 a month for her ample condo she's now being thrown into an incredibly hot rental market where prices start at about $1,700 or $1,800 – if she can actually get one.
And she's not being fussy about her living arrangements.
"Anything," she bluntly says when asked what she's looking for. "(A) one bedroom, one bedroom plus den, something with a stove, something with a fridge, something with a roof over my head."
iNFOnews.ca has agreed not to use her name. She's stressed and worried she may jeopardize her chance of finding a place.
If she could find a one-bedroom rental in Kelowna for $1,500 she says she could "maybe" afford it.
"I'm not calling poor me, I'm not saying that at all, (but) this is a lot," she says.
While the high price is one thing, the sheer lack of rentals makes the situation even worse.
"When you go and do a viewing you could be in amongst 30 to 40 people in one day to do a viewing on a property," she said.
She's put her name on every available housing waitlist from B.C. Housing to various local low-income housing groups. She knows the waitlists are very long.
While her predicament has become all too common there are no hard numbers on how many people are in a similar predicament.
A recent report from the Journey Home Society found that 8,000 residents in Kelowna were paying more than 30 per cent of their income in rent, with many paying above 50 per cent. Their precarious financial situation puts them at risk of becoming homeless.
But the report didn't have any data on how many people are becoming homeless if they have just fallen victim to landlords "cashing out" and selling their homes due to the hot real estate market.
READ MORE: HOUSING CRISIS: Family of 5 forced to live in small Vernon motel room
In Vernon, there are 32 children living in various motel rooms with their families, according to Turning Points Collaborative Society.
The society says a lot of the families ended up in the motel rooms because their landlords sold the homes they were living in and they can't afford or manage to find a new rental.
For the Kelowna renter faced with finding a new affordable place for July 1, it's causing incredible stress.
She's coping the best she can on a daily basis but says it's extremely difficult.
When asked what she'll do if she doesn't find a place, she simply replies, "I try not to think about that."
"When you have your back against the wall and you have no choice, I have no answers for that," she says.
The situation is a far cry from when she first rented her apartment more than a decade ago. She says at the time finding a place wasn't an issue.
But a decade later, Kelowna now ranks as the fourth most expensive place to rent in Canada. And prices have recently skyrocketed with rents jumping by more than 25 per cent from March 2021 to March 2022, according to online rental company Zumper.
The Kelowna tenant also blames the high prices and little availability on the recent upsurge in vacation rentals which didn't exist in the same way a decade ago.
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A 2021 study by the U.S based Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences found that Airbnb has increased housing prices and rental rates, and the increases were stronger on vacation destination towns.
The findings match what other studies in the U.S. and Germany have also found that Airbnb contributed to housing shortages and rent increases. Another study showed that landlords were switching from long-term rentals to short-term vacation rentals which affected the supply and affordability of rental housing.
"It is taking away from local people that need a place," the Kelowna woman says. "It is taking away any potential rentals from residents and local people."
Having lived her entire adult life in Kelowna and raised her grown-up children there, she is now considering moving away to find something affordable.
"I may have to," she says, although she doesn't know where she would go.
READ MORE: Kelowna's homeless population expected to double by 2026
If she doesn't find a place by July 1 she may have to move in with family. But it's a last resort.
"I don't want to ask," she says.
She's always sustained herself and it's obvious she has a lot of pride.
And what would she like the government to do?
"Stop making empty promises. Put more regulation into the Rental Tenancy Branch and the arbitration process... stop the temporary vacation rentals, and of course affordable housing," she says.
She now has seven weeks to find a place she can afford, before becoming another causality in the region's housing crisis.
— With files from Rob Munro
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