Housing worries Canadians, poll finds

Two out of five see it as unaffordable

OTTAWA — Feel like a house in your city is unaffordable? You’re not alone.

A new poll suggests that about two in five Canadians believe housing in this country is not affordable for them, a finding that cuts almost evenly across income levels.

The issue of affordability is one that Greater Victoria residents have faced for years, and the situation is becoming tougher for buyers as prices continue to rise.

Purchasing a single-family house in the core area is out of reach for many. In May, the benchmark price for a house in the core was $825,000. That’s up by 16.8 per cent from May 2016, the Victoria Real Estate Board said.

As a result, many residents are looking at areas farther from the core. Others have turned to condominiums, which are typically less costly.

The poll by EKOS Research appears even more bleak in some of Canada’s hottest housing markets, where only a small sliver of respondents said they believe homes are affordable.

The data line up with more formal benchmarks the federal government uses to measure affordability, as well as other data about the cost of housing, whether purchased or rented.

The federal government has promised a national housing strategy to help Canadians find and afford suitable housing, part of a larger strategy to reduce poverty. But the poll suggests the government is also dealing with public fears about affordability.

“It’s a deeply troubling finding that in certain portions of Canada, either geographically or societally, that this is a crisis level,” said Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research.

The poll found about half of respondents who consider themselves poor or working class believe that the cost of local housing is beyond their means. The rate was 38 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively, with respondents who consider themselves middle or upper class.

Only six per cent of respondents in Toronto and two per cent in Vancouver said they believe housing was affordable. In Calgary, the number was 11 per cent; in Montreal, 22 per cent.

The results of the telephone poll of 5,658 Canadians, conducted between June 1 and 19, are considered accurate to within 1.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Researchers from the University of Calgary’s school of public policy found that affordability crunch is most acute in Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto, where a low-income family can spend upward of half its income on the lowest-priced apartments.