09 October 2023 , 09:11
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A couple has said they were pushed out of their home by their landlord, leaving a 92-year-old man with cancer and his wife, 74, sleeping on their son's couch.
Angela Jun was unable to find alternative accommodation because of short notice. They were asked to leave their $1,400-a-month home in Vancouver, Canada.
"What I am worried about is my husband," Angela told CBC News. "He has cancer. One kidney was removed. And now he has to wear a tube... I'm just stressed out … but what can we do?"
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The pair decided to stay in Vancouver because it is where her children and grandchildren live, but they have considered moving to Yukon where her father owns land.
London flat for rent for £1,400 a month with bed tucked away in kitchen cupboard
Angela and her husband were left sleeping on their son's couch (CBC)The situation arose when the owner of the flat suddenly sold the $1,400-a-month ($1,023 USD) home and their plight is not unlike others in the city.
The Homelessness Services Association records that 4,821 said they were without a permanent residence in the metro area of Vancouver this year. This is the highest number since the organisation began recording this statistic in 2005.
Angela added: "The prime minister asked for big food markets not to raise the prices up, but how about housing, rental housing? Where are the people going to cook their food?"
Rental accommodation in Canada continues to rise, according to figures from rentals.ca and data from Urbanation. The average new tenant is now being asked to pay $2,117 ($1,548) a month.
In the US, data from Zillow released in August showed rent was still increasing, but the rate had slowed down to lower than before the pandemic. "Asking rents climbed by $10, or 0.5%, from June to July," the report said.
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The report added: "That brings the typical asking rent nationwide to $2,062, or 3.6% higher than one year ago, continuing a steady, 17-month-long slowdown in the annual growth rate since hitting a record-high 16.2% in February 2022. The 0.5% monthly increase is a step down from June’s 0.6% monthly growth, but a little faster than the average pre-pandemic July increase of 0.4%, averaged over data from 2015 to 2019."
There is also a recent rent involving the gap between suburban rents remaining cheaper than city rents, with the gap much smaller according to Bloomberg. Suburban rents were around 12 per cent cheaper in 2019, but this fell to 5.8 per cent by 2022.