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LIVE NOW 30% of town structures destroyed in Jasper wildfire: officials
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is set to tour the resort town of Jasper to see firsthand the devastation caused by wildfires.
For people living in rental housing, it’s not a secret: it can be stressful.
A new study from Statistics Canada says renters report a lower quality of life compared to people who own their homes. Canadians who rent reported feeling financial strain, and advocates say that’s no surprise.
One tenants’ advocate describes it as "constant uncertainty" that can have a ripple effect on one’s life.
“Having a lack of stability in general can be extremely stressful if you don’t know that you’re going to be living in the same place from year to year,” said Megan Kee, an organizer with the Toronto group No Demovictions – a tenants’ group that advocates for people facing evictions due to demolition.
“I thought that I was safe,” she explained, adding she had lived in her apartment building for seven years, thinking she had avoided rent hikes arriving elsewhere in the city.
“Rent started going up. But now, even my building is being demolished to build condos,” she added.
New data shows renters were 15 percentage points more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs and over 11 points less likely to report high overall life satisfaction when compared to homeowners.
Some of the information was compiled between 2021 and 2022, when rent and mortgage rates were even lower than they are today.
Tenants were also less likely to report a strong sense of belonging to their community and more likely to report feelings of loneliness.
“It’s likely they’re less invested in the community because they don’t know how long they’re going to stay there,” said Douglas Kwan, Director of Advocacy and Legal Services at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.
“They have nowhere to go if their rent becomes unaffordable and they’re stuck in a situation where it may be affordable to them, but the circumstances in which they live are not ideal,” said Kwan.
“If you need a house, you need a house right away,” said Banff, Alta., resident Catia Antunes, who was on an apartment waiting list for two years before finding her current home -- just in time for a new baby.
Banff has a shortage of roughly 1,000 units.
“Renting a place used to be so easy, and it was fun as well to go and look at houses. Now it’s just very damn scary,” said Antunes.
On the day the study was released, Housing Minister Sean Fraser was in Banff to announce agreements with six rural Albertan communities to fast-track 400 homes over the next four years.
“There’s a level of uncertainty facing renters that are not the same as homeowners, where they have more control over their finances, over the state and condition of their home,” said Kwan.
The report also says Canadians are spending more of their income on rent.
“Shelter costs are the biggest share of almost every household budget, and Canadians have been spending a larger share of their income on these costs.”
Tenants also scored lower on quality of life scores in Toronto and Vancouver, compared with residents in other parts of their provinces.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is set to tour the resort town of Jasper to see firsthand the devastation caused by wildfires.
Police in Mississauga are conducting a full-scale search of the city’s biggest park for a non-verbal toddler who went missing Thursday evening. Sgt. Jennifer Trimble told reporters Friday morning that there has been no trace of three-year-old Zaid Abdullah since 6:20 p.m., when he was last seen with his parents in Erindale Park, near Dundas Street West and Mississauga Road.
Orillia OPP arrested and charged a driver with impaired driving after flashing their high beams.
The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge said Thursday afternoon most of its structures are 'standing and intact,' including its iconic main lodge.
Canada soccer great Christine Sinclair said on Friday national team players were never shown drone footage during the more than two decades she was on the team, following a spying scandal that cast a shadow over the Canadians at the Paris Games.
Scotiabank says it has fixed a technical issue that impacted direct deposits on Friday morning.
After four years of mask mandates, gathering restrictions, vaccinations and hospitalizations, British Columbia’s provincial health officer has ended the province's public-health emergency for COVID-19.
Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal has denied a political group that opposes so-called “gender ideology” intervener status in a legal dispute over the province’s controversial pronoun law.
A Winnipeg senior is getting soaked with a six figure water bill.
As fire threatened people in Jasper National Park, Colleen Knull sprung into action.
Video posted to social media on Thursday morning appears to show the charred remains of a Jasper, Alta., neighbourhood.
A Saskatchewan-born veteran of the Second World War was recently presented with France's highest national order.
A local First Nations elder and veteran is helping to bring the Ojibwe language to a well-known film for the first time.
A cat who fled her Montreal home nearly a decade ago has been reunited with her family after being found in Ottawa.
A woman in Waterloo, Ont. is out thousands of dollars for a car crash she wasn’t involved in.
A swarm of bees living in a lamppost in Winnipeg’s Sage Creek neighbourhood has found a new home for its hive.
Around 100 acres of Manitoba Crown Land near the Saskatchewan border is being returned to the Métis community.
Nova Scotia is suspending the licensed Cape Breton moose hunt for three years due to what the province is calling a “significant drop” in the population.