A housing advocate says that the number of empty homes in the province dropped from 7% in 2018 to 3% in 2019
Kathryn Hewlett’s whole life has been packed into a 20-foot-long vehicle for the past two years. She has a small bed, a bathroom, a stove, and a table for eating that are all crammed together.
She is always going from place to place, looking for a new place to park. She’s glad to have a roof over her head, but she wants a place she can call home that’s more stable.
Hewlett, who is from Pennsylvania but now lives full-time in an RV in Newfoundland and Labrador, said, “I’ve reached a point where I can’t continue mentally. I can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing for two years.”
“Shifting the camper, staying here, staying there. “I’m getting worn out.”
Hope Jamieson, an affordable housing consultant and researcher in St. John’s, says that Hewlett is one of a growing number of people in the province and the country who are having trouble finding an affordable place to live.
Jamieson said that over the last 15 years, average rent prices in the province and the country as a whole have grown about twice as fast as the average household income. People say that the last time a family in a big Canadian city with a median income could afford to buy a home was around 20 years ago.
Jamieson also says that there aren’t enough affordable homes because there aren’t enough of them.
The vacancy rate in Newfoundland and Labrador has dropped from around 7% in 2019 to just under 3% right now, leaving many people with few options.In some situations, packing up the house and taking it on the road is the only option.
Jamieson said, “There are a lot more people looking for affordable places to rent and a lot more people trying to get the most out of their investments by raising rents to whatever they think the market will bear.”
“That’s the system we’ve set up, and it’s failing people.”
‘I want to settle down
Hewlett just got a one-year lease for a property in Triton, a small town in central Newfoundland, starting in August. It took him two years to find this, though.
Hewlett quit her job managing a building for a non-profit in New Jersey in 2021 because, she says, she was overworked and didn’t have any help. She also lived in the building. So when she quit her job, she was without a job and without a place to live.
Then she packed up her things, put most of them in storage, and started living full-time in an RV with help from her family.
“The camper was a way to stay alive,” Hewlett said. She also said that the camper was in her daughter’s name. “I had somewhere to go when I needed to get away. It has been that important to me.”
Hewlett has dual citizenship, so she drove her camper from the United States to Newfoundland and Labrador, where most of her family is from.
She has lived in many different places in both the U.S. and Newfoundland over the past two years, she said. She has put her RV in the driveways of family members and in RV parks. She has also worked on a farm on the west coast of the island in exchange for a place to stay, and she has stayed temporarily in winter rental homes.
“I want to settle down,” Hewlett said through tears that made her voice crack. “I need to have my own space.”
An affordable alternative
Danielle Steiner told CBC News that she, too, can’t find a place to rent.
She and her husband, David Janzen, live full-time in an RV park in Mount Pearl in a 22-foot-long camper. They moved to the province from Vancouver Island because Janzen was going back to school and they couldn’t afford to live on one salary where he was going to school in B.C.
What they didn’t realize was how few places they could live anywhere else.
Steiner said, “When we were looking at rentals out here, we didn’t realize how much of a crisis there was in terms of demand.” “There’s a lot of demand in B.C., but it’s just so big out here.”
Steiner said that living in a camping trailer is the only real choice right now.
She said that she and her husband like living in an RV, but it’s not always cheaper than renting a house. During the summer, they pay about $1,000 a month to stay at the campgrounds in Mount Pearl. During the winter, they pay another $200.
Living in a camper comes with other problems as well.
Hewlett said that this spring, she spent $1,500 on maintenance for her trailer.
Hewlett said, “If I had money and wanted to live in a camper, I’d be all over the place.” “But I don’t have that problem. I’m in a place where I need a place to stay.”
Homelessness rates skyrocketin
Jamieson doesn’t know how many people in the province live full-time in RVs, but End Homelessness St. John’s has said that the number of homeless people in the city has gone up by 63% in the last year.
There are many different reasons for this rise. Jamieson said that the lack of rent control laws in the province is part of the reason why rents are so high.
They said there is no limit on how much a landlord can raise the rent. The only rule is that landlords have to give tenants six months’ notice.
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N.L. is looking for plans to build more than 850 new rental units that are affordable.
Jamieson said that the province needs to do something about the lack of rent control laws and put more money into community-based housing.
“We’ve been relying on the private market for 30 years, and it hasn’t solved the problem,” said Jamieson.
“So I don’t think it makes much sense to keep doing the same things and hope that something will change.”
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