"It's a Deepening Crisis" United Way's Annual Housing Report Sees Continued Downward Trend

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The United Way Peterborough & District has released its 20th edition of ‘Housing is Fundamental,’ which is a report that tracked the cost and availability of rental housing in Peterborough from 2004 to 2024, announced on Wednesday morning.

Paul Armstrong authored the Housing is Fundamental report annually. Photo by David Tuan Bui.

Author Paul Armstrong says the research also seeks to contextualize the pressures households face in maintaining safe, affordable housing. His main takeaway is that their housing in Peterborough has trended downward repeatedly.

“It's a deepening crisis,” explained Armstrong. “This is something that compounds year over year over year, and it's been happening for 25 to 30 years. We are in a very, very bad set of circumstances and housing is underscoring the times of social deficiencies that we have.

The following are his key findings:

  • Current vacancy rate: 3.1 per cent

  • Current two-bedroom rent: $1,506/month, a 6.7 per cent increase over last year

  • 20 per cent of purpose-built rental units are owned by financial firms- approximately 400,000 units nationally

  • Over a 20-year period rent for a two-bedroom unit has gone up 88.95 per cent The current welfare rate for a single person is $733/month, while the average bachelor apartment rents for $956/month

“As a society, we are in decline of people who can't afford their housing when they have to line up for their food. The significant numbers that where you find this in housing and in food insecurity. We are in a time that we can safely say that we have first-world and third-world societies co-existing.”

“We need to see housing as a human right,” explained Jim Russell, United Way CEO. “We need to understand that success in life requires safe affordable housing. We need to be ever vigilant to the creeping presence of a predatory capitalism."

Trent University’s Dr. Naomi Nichols, director of research for the social change lab Trent had analyzed Armstrong’s report.

“This year's Housing is Fundamental report demonstrates the deep need for non-profit and public investments in affordable rental housing to lessen the financial pressures facing individuals and families in our community,” she explained. “Peterborough residents are being squeezed. Despite a softening of local vacancy rates since 2022, average market rents and the cost of food continue to rise faster than household incomes.”

“We are living the effects of the globalization of inequality and the proliferation of economic hardship,” concluded Armstrong. “To know and witness this progression is to call for justice and rebalancing.”

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