Study: Lack of apartment rentals leads to decline of affordable housing in Calgary

New numbers show a steady downward trend when it comes to affordable housing in Calgary.

The School of Public Policy released a new report Thursday, showing a 96 per cent hike in population and a 24 per cent decrease in apartment rentals since 1990.

The study ranks Calgary the worst compared to other major cities in Canada like Toronto, which showed a 57 per cent increase in population and a five per cent increase in apartment rentals.

Professor of Economics at the School of Public Policy, Ron Kneebone, said this downward trend has a big impact.

“When you restrict a rental market like this, it drives up costs,” he said. “Renting has become very expensive and in previous reports, we have shown that Calgary is the most expensive city for someone with low income to live.”

Kneebone explained a lack of affordable housing leads to things like homelessness and more people needing support from social agencies.

“A large family might be crammed into a one-bedroom apartment because that’s all they can afford,” he said. “All sorts of social ills come from this. It sometimes prompts domestic violence calls, unfortunately, because of the stress that comes from having poor housing.”

Kneebone said municipalities need to lower construction costs for developers and make sure the city can own enough land to build more apartment rentals.

“At the provincial level, I think, we need to look at the amount of income support we provide people on the low-income level,” he said. “If we could raise that, for example, people would be able to afford the rental units that are actually available because right now a lot of them cannot.”

He added although there has been some talk about the federal government stepping back into housing, they need to think about which cities need it the most because most of the time the money is spread out evenly across the country.

The numbers are based on apartment rental units available per a thousand people in Canada’s four largest cities.

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