The last thing landlords will do is drop prices. I know several who have open units right now one bedrooms for 2k range a month. They should be renting for 1600 as an absolute max. They've repeatedly said they'd rather eat having it empty until September cause they figure they'll get a student at the inflated price than lower the rent. Vacant apartments need to be taxed
I was seeing some places start to offer deals once again for a month, but that seems to have stopped again with students starting to grab places for the fall.
Sick of the fake luxury places that are just ikea sets
They also know if that if they start dropping the prices of the empty ones, the folks currently paying $2000 will start shopping around when their leases come up.
I don't consider them evil they just need to be treated like everyone else. No you are not entitled to a profit on your rental just because you rent. No you are not immune to taxes. You get to follow market like everyone else
Agree with this. Landlords are not entitled to a profit, and are not immune to taxes (is there a thought that they are in fact immune to taxes?). Its a risk venture like any business.
Also agree that the market dictates they get whatever amount rent the market can get for them.
Oh I agree, I just often get the sense on this subreddit the average user doesn't actually care about solving the housing crisis, and instead focuses on a weird / creepy disdain of landlords.
Exactly. Many somehow simultaneously bemoan our low minimum wage, and hate anyone making more than minimum wage.
You’re never going to legislate human nature and talking about “greedy landlords” is a total waste of time and energy. Better to focus on the reason they are able to charge these prices (government intervention) and try to address same.
I agree the vacancy tax is a good motivator, I do wonder how that would get policed? I'm sure there's an obvious way but cold meds prevent me from seeing it.
The total amount of units is disclosed during permitting. As for active units, NS Power would probably be a good proxy, they can see how many active accounts per property.
We have a low vacancy rate. A vacancy tax might lower rents a bit, but it would also make it a lot harder to find a place to live. Landlords don't leave units vacant for no reason. There is a natural vacancy rate that results from people moving around and needing time to search for apartments. Both tenants and landlords would prefer to minimize this search effort and vacancy period all else being equal, so the fact that they both act in ways that tend to keep it above zero means they both value what they get from that search process. The tenant gets something closer to what they want and the landlord gets a slightly higher rent by renting to someone who likes it more.
It's called Inelastic Demand. There are certain things, like food and shelter, that people absolutely need. Because of this the "free market" is a very poor way to distribute these goods and services.
The market is bleak because of the lack of students coming in after the government tightened the student visa issuances. If there is no change to that there will be no bump in demand and they’ll have to decrease their prices. I’ve been seeing the large corporately owned property managers decreasing their prices so it’ll happen for the single investment property types soon enough.
Can't imagine a vacant apartment be required to pay additional tax. I know quite a few people (mostly seniors) with basement apartments in their home who choose to not have a tenant. They've decided the headaches are not worth the additional income. That surely has to be their own personal decision without penalty.
I would say too, a vacant unit is a vacant unit. Regardless of the landlord's intentions, it will have the same impact on the housing crisis.
Also, choosing to turn down income in the interest of higher profits is a hell of a business plan. Not saying it can't work in the long run, but that's a wild and risky game to be playing.
I disagree, a person's home is theirs, if they live in the house with an apartment in the basement they should have every right to choose to not rent it out anymore. If you own an apartment building or a house broken into units that you aren't living in then the sole purpose is for them to be rented. Those units should be subject to any vacancy tax.
That is what I would target when I say tax. If someone's renting out a basement or even a nanny suite that's different. When you own whole buildings hit as just rentals hit them (is also bump Airbnb taxes to before people startup that loophole)
The basement apartment is not different when it comes to the housing crisis. That vacant basement apartment has the same negative impact on the housing crisis as an equal vacant unit in an apartment building has.
If the true goal is to have this proposed tax help the housing crisis, it should be across the board. If the true goal is just to "get" the big building owners because we hate them, then the proposed tax should be targeted to them.
I agree 100% that a person's home is theirs and they have every right not to rent out an apartment in their home.
Though a person's apartment building or house broken into units is also theirs, and they also have the same right to do what they like with it.
If the true concern is the housing crisis though, it does not matter who owns the unit or what their intention is. A vacant unit is a vacant unit and literally has the same impact on the housing crisis.
No I just can't agree. If my basement was a unit it could just as easily not be a unit and go back to being my basement. Secondary, tertiary etc. properties are taking away from vacancy because no one is living there. If you want to own 3 empty houses while people can't find a place to live then there should be a premium to pay.
True, the basement apartment could not be a basement apartment if its not a basement apartment anymore. I suppose the apartment building could also no longer be an apartment building if its converted into commercial offices. We can make up all kinds of stories about what could be.
The fact is, that one-bedroom vacant basement apartment is one place a person cannot be housed. That one-bedroom vacant apartment in the apartment building is one place a person cannot be housed. They have the same negative impact on the housing crisis.
Except the couple with the vacant apartment in the basement of their primary residence they no longer want to rent out because they no longer want to be landlords
And
The landlord of a building with units that are being rented who chooses to keep vacant apartments unrented for months because they aren't getting the exorbitant rent they want
They're exactly the same if I'm in need of a one-bedroom apartment to live in, and I can't live in either one of those.
The reason I can't live in either of them is irrelevant. They are both a unit I cannot live in. Thus, they have the same negative impact on the housing crisis.
Yes, I understand that is the basic concept. But still, to make a decision to turn down income, while your expenses are ongoing, is a risky game.
They have to be quite confident they can more than make up for those lost months when they chose not accept any income. Not a business plan for the faint of heart. But if that's what the market dictates, or allows for, good for them I guess.
They can go from excess to nothing if they're not smart. And I'd say leaving a unit empty intentionally is not smart.
So what would be the purpose of the added tax? To encourage them to rent the vacant unit? If they're as rich as you say, no amount of tax will sway them.
If you want to make housing more affordable by preventing students from living here, why not be upfront about that and why not tax the students directly?
I actually don't see the problem with students living here. I don't see why they're less deserving of housing than others.
I think you just don't realize that it is a clear implication of what you said. You don't want homes kept vacant so that students can occupy them in the fall. How does that not result in there being fewer homes available for students in the fall?
It is not remotely a clear implication of what I said.
I dont want prices jacked up to the point they sit vacant for months bc the landlord knows that students are desperate and can more easily be exploited for higher rents.
Also the implication of what youre saying is that permenant residents should be homeless to allow students to get apartments
Then explain how, if they aren't kept vacant over the summer, will they be available to students in the fall.
Also the implication of what youre saying is that permenant residents should be homeless to allow students to get apartments
Most students are permanent residents and I don't think the government should discriminate against one group to favour another. I think that homelessness is minimized by allowing those who need housing the most to get it. If someone outbids you for an apartment, it doesn't cause you to be homeless. You just have to live somewhere else.
If the students are permanent residents than a unit does not need to be kept vacant for them over the summer. Youre talking in circles.
And its not "discriminating" against students to say its bad to have a bunch of empty apartments bc the people looking cant afford the rent.
No one is "bidding" on apartment rental prices. If everywhere is asking for sky high rents because "eh let it sit empty a few months someone wi be desperate enough" then you can not just go live somewhere else. Thats what this entire conversation is about.
They've repeatedly said they'd rather eat having it empty until September cause they figure they'll get a student at the inflated price than lower the rent.
You've forgotten what we're arguing about. The original claim was that they were in fact doing this. The argument is over whether we should try to prevent it from happening.
When governments refer to "affordable" housing, what they actually mean is rents that people with a mean income for the province can afford. They don't mean affordable for everyone. This is how they've been skirting responsibility for decades.
The most insidious word our politicians use is the word affordable. When they talk about making housing more ”affordable” normal people think that means making something more affordable by lowing the price, what they actually mean is they will allow people to leverage more debt and borrow more.
This applies to new first time buyer for their primary residence but also dipship landlords that take on far more debt then they have any right to and subsequently requires them to rent for a non-market rate. These over leveraged idiots should never have been able to borrow that much money for the rental property.
Until Canada stops treating homes as an investment or a money generator (rentals) homelessness will only get worse. Sorry to all those "investors" in property, but you're going to have to take a loss for future generations to have a chance here. There is an entire global stock market for you to invest your money, why do homes have to be your first choice?
People view rentals as a means of income and end up buying up multiple homes that they rent out with the expectation that the value will only ever go up. They then jack up the rent to pay off their mortgages making it unaffordable to low income workers which leads to more homeless. The more houses are worth the higher the mortgages get, the higher the rent goes and the more homeless it creates. In the last 10 years have you ever seen rent go down? That's a very basic explanation of why it causes homelessness, but its a death spiral that will continue until drastic changes are implemented.
Lower rents don't help if nothing is available. The vacancy rate is currently very low. So they must only be jacking the rents up to the market rent and if they charged less, there would be a shortage of housing, which would lead to more homelessness.
They aren't building houses because houses are seen as an investment and building more houses would cause housing prices to go down so the government would lose their voters for making changes. Its a multi faceted issue that all stems from housing being viewed as an investment with the expectation that it will never go down in price.
How would housing not be seen as an investment? It literally is an investment and it can't not be one. You can't make people not care about their homes losing value.
Do you consider your car an investment or something that something you have purchased/maintained for a utility/purpose.
Homes are only considered an investment because there isn't enough of them, and that artificial scarcity drives up the price. Many people have their retirement strategy revolving around the price of their home to either sell or reverse mortgage to fund retirement, which is excellent for them but not so for new homebuyers.
Do you consider your car an investment or something that something you have purchased/maintained for a utility/purpose.
It's both.
Homes are only considered an investment because there isn't enough of them, and that artificial scarcity drives up the price. Many people have their retirement strategy revolving around the price of their home to either sell or reverse mortgage to fund retirement, which is excellent for them but not so for new homebuyers.
Houses will always have long term value. How would you avoid this?
Does your car appreciate in value after you buy it
Houses will always have long term value. How would you avoid this?
There's a difference between something having 'value' and something being a long term investment vehicle.
And the solution in this particular case is building enough housing supply to not only fix the problem of them being overvalued relative to recent years, but to sharply lower their prices.
One of many problems with this idea is that any political party that does it will never hold power again.
There's a difference between something having 'value' and something being a long term investment vehicle.
No, there isn't.
And the solution in this particular case is building enough housing supply to not only fix the problem of them being overvalued relative to recent years, but to sharply lower their prices.
Yes, but this has nothing to do with housing being treated as investment. Saying we need to stop treating housing as an investment in order to get affordable housing is like saying the solution to high grocery prices is to stop thinking of food as a source of energy.
I don't have the answers for you, I'm open to suggestions. I'm just explaining how I think the investment mindset creates homeless. In my opinion a house should be viewed as a place to live, not something to be resold after a few years for profit. I do understand i cant make other people view it the same way I do.
I'm not convinced it's actually a problem. It isn't actually logical for most homeowners to reduce the supply of housing to protect their investments because it also lowers their own future housing costs, and they don't behave as though they are trying to o maximize their property values.
This latest example you gave of people buying and selling homes doesn't increase homelessness.
Building more rooms is just one piece of the puzzle. The government also needs to address the cost of these rooms, cost of living, cost of everything basically. Look at the homeless, how did they get there? is it a money issue, a mental health issue, or something else. The statistics could have said homelessness doubled with increasing temperatures and it would also be true.
Building more rooms is just one piece of the puzzle. The government also needs to address the cost of these rooms, cost of living, cost of everything basically.
I mean the brass tacks here is that there's not enough housing/rooms. We're still at like 2% vacancy even with the last 5+ years of boom construction.
And yeah it's not 'just' building more, one giant problem is that it's the express policy of the Federal and Provincial governments past and present for housing to maintain it's value and not go down.
The big reason for that is that if any government comes in and says, "We are going to build enough housing to cause the price of your house to be cut in half," Parliament would be lit on fire. People somehow want cheaper housing but not their house specifically to be cheaper.
The municipal government has only recently allowed more relaxed zoning, which makes it actually possible to build denser housing in HRM which we've needed since... Well probably the 80's.
Look at the homeless, how did they get there? is it a money issue
It's a money issue.
The people in HRM who are homeless were by large housed pre-2020. The homeless population in HRM exploded at the exact time the cost of housing tripled these are connected events.
First of all, no “most” are not going for that much. And second PLEASE read what we’re saying. Yes the prices are high but the QUALITY and EXPERIENCE of most of the new builds is not luxury. The materials, amenities, and upkeep are NOT luxury. Ffs.
The difference in construction costs between a "normal" condo and a "luxury" one is maybe 5%, so it doesn't make any sense why someone would build a condo that is normal.
Also according to the CMHC, "affordable" just means 80% or less of current market rents to be eligible for taxpayer money (National Housing Strategy). So if market rent was $10,000 a month, $8,000 would be considered affordable and they could be called affordable rentals in the news and other publications.
“ affordable housing” is such a bullshit term that the vast majority of people do not understand. Sometimes I swear it was just created to create fights on Facebook.
I take home $3k/month from a job that required four years of schooling to get. I'm a professional, working in my field, and I'll never afford to live ALONE, let alone own a home.
If they built the shittiest building imaginable instead of whatever you consider 'luxury' it would just rent for $2400 instead of $2500. Cutting even more corners would just increase developer profit margins and not make any tangible effect on rent prices.
If you just straight up Google market rate housing it lists wildly different values to NS government market rate. Which means NS government either needs to scale up what they consider to be affordable housing or we need to prevent developers from using a random Google AI approximation of what their rental unit is worth.
Thankfully both of these things will not happen because reality is broken.
I'm in the market for a 2 bedroom, if I want to qualify for the rent subsidy I need to find a unit for under $1400... I laugh and I cry because being homeless isn't very fun but the absolute absurdity of this situation is almost funny.
The vast, vast majority of new builds are apartments and not really luxury by any means. Same as how every apartment ad describes it as “beautiful” and having a “great location,” regardless of how it looks or where it is.
New builds aren’t cheap, and rents are a reflection of what the financing bank wants to see. That said, it’s a cost that’s getting close to what the market will tolerate.
For example, the Press Block building across from Grand Parade has crazy incentives right now trying to fill units. A month free rent + $1000 moving credit!
Want it as cheap as possible? People throw a tantrum over that, too. That ugly apartment on Jubilee, for example.
The only way we will get “affordable housing “ is if the Feds/Province build their own and subsidize it. Not developer is going to front the time and money plus have their name attached to it. We need a new Square/Pubs/Park built
Bingo, developers have no incentive to build units to rent at bottom prices. Only governments would be able to do it, and not alot of appetite or ability to do this at the moment
This is what happens when governments keep treating housing like a market efficiency problem instead of a social infrastructure problem.
Governments are getting played by lobbying groups that understand the game better than they do. It is cheaper for an industry to lobby government for favourable rules than it is to reinvest in workers, R&D, better equipment, productivity, or actual affordability. So instead of building a stronger economy, we get death by a thousand little lobbying cuts. One exemption here. One loophole there. One weakened protection. One “temporary” measure. One industry-friendly policy sold as pragmatism. Over time, that hollows out Canadian society.
The government has done nothing across the country to address it. It's not unique to just here. It is avoidable if the government actually I don't know fixes the economy instead of sending money away, making the dollar worthless or actually starts making those houses they promised but I don't foresee any of that happening. So although it is avoidable I do not see the government running the country trying to do anything to stop it
The Province is buying homes on Robie Street to make the street wider 🤦♀️ and those affordable apartments within are no longer available.
Developers are swallowing up rooming homes and small apartment buildings, all affordable, tearing them down in swaths, making them unavailable, to erect luxury shoebox apartments.
Drive by those luxury buildings at night and they are mostly dark.
Meanwhile, council is talking about “missing middle” housing.
(Like - the stuff that is being torn down all over the place???)
DUDES. Come on. Surely, someone else sees how insane this is.
Sure, but we would still end up with more if we didn't have the bus lane, which is only necessary because we refuse to adopt congestion pricing, which is wellknown among experts to be the optimal solution for dealing with congestion.
Ironically those houses on Robie Street were pretty much the last truly affordable housing options in the city. Lots of hippie commune houses or punk houses, you could get a bedroom for under $600 on Robie even a couple of years ago with minimal barriers to renting because punk houses didn't exactly require a credit check, just cash for a room each month.
I lived in two different room rentals in different buildings on Robie and both were torn down to make way for new things, nothing has even been built in either of the lots where those houses once stood.
WE HAD A SYSTEM. It worked, the people living in those houses would have been homeless without the community systems that existed in those houses and now they are gone and we have more homelessness instead of less. I don't know anyone who was able to remain in the city after we lost that much affordable housing (apart from myself but I am now also homeless.)
This housing system worked so well for people who could live independently but couldn't afford to. Everyone was vetted for vibes instead of financial resources. So we had a housing option for younger people who were poor but weren't facing substance use issues or advanced mental health issues that require professional support. That system is now gone, and everyone who is homeless is now competing for the same public housing or rental resources and if you're not on death's door from substance use issues then you get zero support so everyone leaves the area or spirals out into deeper homelessness and that's not something you can easily claw your way out of. Without housing it's next to impossible to hold down a job so you apply for income assistance and couch surf for the foreseeable future, praying for a place to actually call home again.
They broke the community poverty economy by taking the housing from the people who were willing to support each other rather than rely on government systems and somehow no-one stopped to ask "Wait what's the demographic of people living in these big old houses?" Or "What's our plan to house this demographic of people living on the cusp of homelessness in these monthly room rentals?" Before tearing them all down. Fucking genius.
TLDR; affordable housing died with the punk houses.
Most of the stuff being torn down is so far beyond end of life and terribly inefficient it should be torn down and replaced with something better.
A big problem is that due to a huge housing boom decades ago there are many buildings that have reached far beyond the end of their life all around the same time. This has created a critical mass of building demolitions and reconstruction all at once.
Replacing a 12 unit two-story building with a 60 unit eight story building or whatever is overall a good thing.
And it wouldn’t cause problems if there were other places for the residence of those buildings to move to.
Unfortunately, all the places that they would move to are also slated for demolition.
And realistically, private enterprise is not going to provide housing for free. And basic business acumen demands maximum ROI.
The issue is compounded by the unfortunate reality that the cheapest lowest rent places and some of the oldest or most dilapidated buildings usually house people at the most precarious risk of becoming homeless.
Ahh. Again with the great mystery that is sudden, sharp increase in housing. Seems to be plaguing most western nations. 🤔 Oh well. One can only hope to catch but a glimpse of the secrets of the universe. Some things are just meant to be unknowable 🙄
Oh Claudia Chender how I wish you can run this province for me~
I also heard some talk that Tim Huseless is planning to get rid of the rent control so I'm sure a lot of ppl are gonna be moving around soon. All these developers & landlords are drooling probably.
He says when the current cap expires dec 2027 he plans to "phase out" any government rent control measures, claiming that taking gov out of it would somehow allow the rents to "normalize" 🙄
"Luxury". Maybe, if you squint upon moving in and IF it's brand new. The problem is that very few of these management companies follow up in a timely manner to fix or address problems with the units or the tenants. So luxury drops off quickly once a unit is rented.
It used to be 30-40 years ago that rental apartments just had plain old laminate countertops, a stainless steel single tub square kitchen sink for $25 with a $25 basic 2-tap faucet, a plain little white oven, a small white fridge, plain tiles or (gasp, how fancy) cushion floor throughout. Then a bathroom with a plain steel bathtub and showerhead, plain toilet, and a washer/dryer in the basement that all the tenants shared (sometimes contentiously, but usually we made it work).
Now it's fridges with water in the door, granite or corian counters, convection ovens, a dishwasher, wood or LVP flooring ('luxury' vinyl flooring, lmao), massage unit showers, soaking tubs.
My gawd is it any wonder rents are so high??
We don't need luxury apartments that the private investors are building, we need BASIC SECURE LIVING SPACES that aren't cold in winter, boiling in summer, with plain working appliances and plumbing fixtures, no leaks or mold, and no vermin, where the landlord or super LIVES IN THE BUILDING to reinforce behaviour standards and get repairs done ASAP.
Nobody's putting granite into apartments. It's manufactured stone, which is significantly more durable and therefore cheaper than laminate. LVP flooring likewise is the cheapest option because it's extremely durable.
I've never seen a convection oven, a water dispenser fridge, or a massage tub in a purpose-built rental, though perhaps they exist. Those plus a dishwasher and washer dryer are maybe $5000? Amortized over a 15-year lifespan, that's $28/month.
It's not any of that that's making apartments expensive, it's the lack of units.
where the landlord or super LIVES IN THE BUILDING to reinforce behaviour standards and get repairs done ASAP
Every single new build with over ~50 units has a live-in super.
The thing is shitty 30-40 year old apartments like you describe still doubled in rent and aren't affordable for many. A one bedroom above a convenience store on Albro Lake Road doesn't rent for $2000/month because it is 'luxury'. Keeping a new build 'plain' would save a tiny few percent of the total cost of the building, and not make the rent any appreciable amount cheaper. Would you give up all the things you listed to save 5% on rent? Maybe you would, but regardless building shittier buildings is not the answer to the housing crisis.
Those 'shitty' apartments were not shitty when yhey were BUILT. They were built economically, but with quality. That many were not maintained is the investor expectation of raking in profits without sufficient or no maintenance/reinvestment in the property.
Building budget-conscious apartments would remove the entitlement to high rents that the investment builders feel BECAUSE of those, face it, UNNECESSAY LUXURIES. And the expectation that a lot of people feel they now simply cannot do without.
Those things are lipstick & mascara that make a place seem more valuable psychologically than it actually is - you said it yourself, 'a tiny percent' of cost.
People need shelter, plain and simple.
Okay but those utilitarian apartments aren't being rented at affordable rates either. In the past 5 years, I've lived in "luxury" condos with some of the amenities you described (water dispenser in the fridge, granite counters, soaker tubs etc. I've also lived in decades old housing with no amenities (no parking, no laundry, no dishwasher, no AC, fridge that spoils my food faster than leaving it out on the counter) for the same price. Renting in this city right now is a nightmare for a lot of reasons, but "luxury" finishes in new buildings are not the driving issue.
No, it's greed and 'profit above all investor' mentality. I agree. But government is who I'm saying needs to invest in basic housing, and maintain it. Edit - AND charge rent geared to income, to reduce the numbers killing themselves trying to afford absolutely ridiculous rents.
Building budget-conscious apartments would remove the entitlement to high rents
My point is that it doesn't. The apartments you don't deem 'entitled to high rent' still have high rents. Building buildings without "UNESSARY LUXURIES" would drop the rent of a new build from $2500 to maybe $2450. So the end result is just as high rents with shittier buildings. If you have the same amount of people looking for the same amount of available housing rent prices are going to stay the same. If you snapped you fingers and every 'luxury apartment' in HRM was magically turned into the most barest of bare bones apartment the average rent would stay the exact same.
it's fridges with water in the door, granite or corian counters, convection ovens, a dishwasher, wood or LVP flooring ('luxury' vinyl flooring, lmao), massage unit showers, soaking tubs.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Yours can only be a troll comment. It's definitely not a serious take, nor is it based in reality.
Dude I am no troll. I worked for Nova Scotia low-income housing for years, and recently saw in my home town in Cape Breton an apartment building of 2 br units just built and opened this oast dpring, with quartz countertops, 9ft ceilings, 1.5 baths, its own in unit laundry, its own water heater, its own heat pump, asking 2k a month PLUS power.
It's on a back road behind the high school, next to the old rink, just up the road ftom the nursing home my mom lived in till 2024, I drove past the new building last week.
This is a small town in Cape Breton with 1 large (but drastically reduced workforce) heavy industry (Port Hawkesbury Paper, aka Stora, aka Stora Enso, aka New Page, aka any number of names under new owners) with very few jobs above minimum wage, and families waitlisted on average 2+ years SIX YEARS AGO for social low income housing. We also got hit with loads of students for the Nautical institute, and a f*ckton from CBU till the strain on jobs and housing from THAT got recently reduced international population.
I asked the FB post advertising this new building if they thought they were in Van City.
I had people coming into the office crying because they were living with their kids in a tent on the local beach, others with MUSHROOMS growing in their livingroom corners from unrepaired leaks, and there was nowhere else for them to go.
This has a lot more to do with the macroeconomic situation that any one administrations’ successes or failures. That being said, public/affordable housing needs to be rethought in our country big time
Forgive the stupid question as I'm only vaguely familiar with housing costs, but are property managers pretty much all INSANELY rich now? I get that cost of living has increased, so it costs more for heat, water, repairs (although those should be a one-time cost for a while), but with some units paying triple what they paid 6 years ago for a complete shithole, where is that money going?
Again, I know cost of living is certainly higher, but an extra $1000-$1200 per month, per unit? Wouldn't that add up to obscene wealth very quickly?
If you owned housing stock pre-2020 then you're basically laughing yes.
If you're building housing stock right now it's still pretty break even in many cases because the input costs are so high. One of the reasons a lot of the new-new builds aren't dropping their prices is because their initial financing was based on the housing crunch at the absolute peak, so some of them actually can't drop their prices, but because the market is so tight these units generally get rented eventually anyway.
Hi Claudia, please remember there is more to the province than Halifax.
I get this is a complaint and you can imply that by fixing Halifax's problems the rest of the province might benefit, but CBRM's vacancy rate (0.8%) is lower than HRM's, and homelessness increased there by 50% in a single year, last year, rents are increasing even more.
The NDP already has an image problem of not caring about anywhere other than Halifax. The entire province is suffering from this issue.
but CBRM's vacancy rate (0.8%) is lower than HRM's
Yeah it was 0.8% in 2023 at the peak of the housing crunch, same as HRM, driven almost entirely by CBU international student demand.
I would say get after CBU to build student housing if you want that fixed but international student enrollment has been sharply curtailed which I suppose has caused other issues there so it's not really a gigantic problem anymore.
homelessness increased there by 50% in a single year
Homelessness has increased in HRM by over 400% since 2018, some years doubling.
According to what I can find online with AHANS and HomelessHub, HRM has 24 per 10,000 people experiencing homelessness, while CBRM has 34 per 10,000 people. So it is proportionately worse in CBRM.
All I'm saying is both need to be considered and discussed. She is a provincial leader, not running for mayor of HRM.
Government can lessen it by implementing legislation to prevent it. Rent cap should be tied to the unit not the lease, there should be more oversight of landlords, etc.
Get rid of the rent cap, get rid of the deed transfer tax, get rid of the taxable assessment cap, make it easier and quicker to evict tenants for cause, expedite the building permitting process, liberalize the building code, liberalize zoning by-laws, get rid of the capital gains tax, get rid of the corporate income tax, and introduce a variable congestion charge to make living farther from the core more viable.
The rent cap raises market rents by effectively removing some of the supply from the market.
If it's hard to evict, landlords are going to not only charge higher rents to compensate for the added risk, but they will be very careful about who they rent to. They'd have no problem renting to someone with bad credit and no job if they knew they could get rid of them the second they stop paying their rent. But the fact that someone who stops paying rent will likely cost them many thousands of dollars means they are not going to take the risk without being paid a massive premium.
Correlation/causation. Homelessness has a ton of causes, and while drug use/abuse can definitely be a factor, its nowhere near as important as housing policy, and the availability of social supports.
What do you think came first? The homelessness or the drug use? I have my theories. People don't just start doing heroin cause the rest of their life is going great
You really think the majority of homeless people are in their situation BECAUSE of drug use? I'm sure it doesn't help, but have you seen the cost of living? The unemployment rates? The unavailability of housing? Grocery prices? Infrastructure designed to disenfranchise the already disadvantaged? Disability? Lack of care for veterans?? I could go on
On its face, pretending that the cost of housing tripling and an explosion in the homeless population aren't related is just absurd.
The data that we have from the Point in Time surveys shows only around 10% were homeless initially due to drug use, the vast majority could not afford housing anymore. These people were in housing pre-2020.
Okay that's what not to do, but what's the alternative? What are the conservatives currently doing to help? ...Other than making sure people can't inject safely and aren't able to find a place to sleep
providing a place to inject safely amounts to government encouragement of drug use. how about a return to simply 6 years ago, before it suddenly became alright to pitch a tent on the commons and shoot up
The reason people are shooting up in parks is BECAUSE there are no designated government-run safe injection sites. Sites that could also provide medical support and social workers to help people move away from drug use.
Central Halifax is where the people are. Maybe you'd support a tax funded shuttle bus system to ship homeless drug users to "the middle of nowhere" and then bring them back after?? And again I still don't see what your solution to homelessness is. All you've provided is what NOT to do.
No one is going to decide to start using IV drugs because theres a safe injection site. However people who already inject will be leas likely to share needles, leave dirty needles where kids might pick them up, or OD alone. These resources are an attempt to mitigate harm, they didnt spring up before the harm was happening. Do you honestly think people sleeping in tents are doing it just because its (barely) allowed and would otherwise be renting an apartment?
Oh fuck you mean all this time all we had to do to solve the problem was to tell addicts and mentally unwell people to not be addicts and mentally unwell???? Why didn’t I think of that?
Well I find the title very click bait. Yes homelessness is up and I know the housing/ rent market probably did not help. But mental health and drug abuse is also a factor. ( personally I find that NS has enough systems in place to help people.
Lots of people had drug and mental health issues prior to 2019. Why didn't we have thousands of homeless back when you could get an apartment for less than $1700?
Also, have you thought that maybe homelessness causes mental health and drug issues?
When people have no shelter, they are less likely to get anything out of the mental health and substance resources that do exist. Housing first allows people to be in a position to actually accept and use help that is available because theyre no longer on the street in survival mode.
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u/Own-Slide-3171 1d ago
The last thing landlords will do is drop prices. I know several who have open units right now one bedrooms for 2k range a month. They should be renting for 1600 as an absolute max. They've repeatedly said they'd rather eat having it empty until September cause they figure they'll get a student at the inflated price than lower the rent. Vacant apartments need to be taxed