Jessica Wright has spent more than a year and a half on New Brunswick’s affordable housing waiting list, hoping to be placed in affordable housing in St. John or receive a supplement to pay her rent.
The 31-year-old signed up shortly after suffering two aneurysms on the right side of her brain, affecting her balance and mobility, among other challenges.
“I went from, I would say, a somewhat healthy, normal physical person at 30 to a very disabled person,” Wright said.
With no timeline to get to the top of the list, Wright is left in an apartment she says doesn’t meet her affordability needs and costs more than she can afford.
Stomach punch
While Wright waits, NB Housing has about 250 public housing units a month on average across the province that are vacant, according to data obtained by CBC News through access to information.
When Wright heard that number, she said she felt “punched in the gut.”
“I’m not living in safe conditions for my situation and I’m living beyond my means,” she said.
“I could have been in that situation [in a subsidized apartment]. But because the government is failing, I’m not.”
A St. John’s woman is waiting for affordable housing
Jessica Wright is on NB Housing’s waiting list, despite more than 250 public housing units sitting empty a month on average
While not all available units will meet the criteria she needs, she believes the province could do a better job of finding people in need with empty apartments.
“To me, it just doesn’t sound like they’re trying.”
In June 2022, the province had 227 vacant public housing units, about six percent of its total inventory, updated provincial figures show. That includes 96 units in the St. John’s area, where Wright lives.
In the same month, there were also 133 vacant units under the rent supplement program, where private landlords receive money to help reduce a tenant’s rent to 30 percent of adjusted household income.
Blocks sit empty despite growing need. The province’s waiting list for affordable housing grew from about 5,000 households at the end of 2019 to about 6,000 households last fall.
There are now 8,194 households waiting, government figures show.
“What this suggests is that there is a great need for this type of housing, in large part because we know that housing is becoming extremely unaffordable across the country,” said Nemoy Lewis, an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Metropolitan Toronto University.
Public housing stock has not grown with a waiting list
As the waiting list has grown, the number of public housing units owned and maintained by the province has remained essentially the same, from 3,810 units in January 2020 to 3,808 units now.
The province also owns and maintains 797 “rural and community rental housing units” and funds rent supplements in 4,849 private units.
No one from the Ministry of Social Development was available for an interview to explain why the blocks are sitting empty.
But a look at a region’s free units offers some explanation.
The Central Region, which includes Fredericton and Miramichi, provided a table showing some units are empty because major renovations are needed or staff are waiting on estimates for work to be done.
In several cases, the table says that no one has accepted the device yet.
Wright can’t fathom the idea that a tenant can’t be found from a waiting list of thousands of households.
“If there are so many people, there’s no way,” she said. “It just doesn’t sound possible that anyone outside of that list won’t fit in.”
“How do people review? I would like to know that myself. I’m single, work from home, clean, fixed cat and hermit crab. I don’t have any dogs. How do they screen?”
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Development said the vacant unit is usually filled by the person “with the greatest need and highest priority on the waiting list.”
“However; staff in our areas also recognized the importance of ensuring that rental properties meet customers’ needs in terms of location and accessibility,” spokeswoman Rebecca Howland wrote.
“The staff concentrates on placing clients in units where they will have the best chance of successful tenancy.”
The pandemic is affecting the vacancy rate
When public housing units sit empty for months, Lewis said it can mean a lack of funding to keep social housing in habitable condition.
“Since the last budget, the federal government has committed some funds to address these particular issues,” Lewis said.
“I think more needs to be done to refurbish these blocks so that we don’t have blocks sitting empty for a year and we have families who desperately need housing not being able to access that housing.”
The province says 20 per cent of its total family rental portfolio and 13 per cent of its seniors housing are returned on average each year with a “standard turnaround time of 30 days to fill vacancies.”
High vacancy rates in social housing may indicate that governments need to spend more to keep housing in good condition, according to Nemoy Lewis, an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Metropolitan Toronto University. (Submitted by Nemoy Lewis)
“There will always be some units that are temporarily vacant as tenants move in or out and while the department undertakes necessary repairs, upgrades and routine maintenance,” Howland wrote.
Howland also said the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the ability to turn over empty units due to “lack of availability of supplies and contractors to complete repairs.”
The public housing vacancy rate has fluctuated over the past eight months, from a high of 7.4 percent in January 2022 to a low of six percent last month.
By comparison, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation reported a vacancy rate of 2.68 percent in January 2022.
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