I live in a lovely small city in interior British Columbia, close to where I grew up. About 8 years ago my ex and I found an apartment which I figured would do until we could afford something better. Hasn't happened. And frankly, outside of something miraculous happening, I don't ever see that changing.

The place I live, which we originally rented for $900/month, has been increased to $1080, and is going up again in June. Tenants renting now start off at $1500 a month... For the most basic 2 bedroom accomodation you can imagine. When I look online for 3-bedroom rentals, the dives and dumps are anywhere between $1800-$2100, and anything actually nice is at least in the $2500 range or higher.

Holy shit, how can anyone afford that shit? My s/o and I make $14/hour and that's considered by many of our friends to be a good decent wage for the area. And did I mention that public housing in my city is backed up 8 years? 8 years to get into public housing and you have to be completely desperate with no other options but to put your kids in foster care in order to qualify for anything close to an emergency housing order.

I don't want much. A trailer, a townhouse, or a duplex would suit me just fine. But I'm forced to feel grateful for this shithole (and it is a shithole, only being served with maintenance twice in the whole time I've lived here, despite my bathroom sink being so rusted it's literally detached from the cabinet at this point, and refusing to pay to fix our broken A/C despite us having east facing windows and forcing us to shell out for a new one) because I know people, whole families who have gone homeless due to a lack of affordable or even available accommodation. My stepdaughter doesn't have her own room here- when she comes to stay with us we repurpose the living room for her and my son to sleep in and his room becomes the playroom. Like it's the fuckin' pioneer days or something where all the kids sleep around the wood stove. Okay, that's fine for awhile. But it's been going on for years now and frankly, I don't see it changing. People in my financial category (low income but not impoverished) were struggling with housing costs when I moved here, but now it is fucking impossible to improve your housing status. A 2-bedroom condo goes for $750,000 dollars so you can just fucking forget about ever owning a home to raise children in unless you and your partner are both making an upper-middle class income. Renting is our only option. But despite housing being a necessity to all people, our government is barely concerned with it being completely subjected to free-market forces.

But again, my partner and I are actually the lucky ones. Our squat-hole is a nice dry roof over our heads. I've known friends who are renting for years and reno-victed out only for them to find that even basic housing is going for $500 more than what they were previously paying in rent and suddenly having to not just cut back on lifestyle stuff like having a nice meal but also having to go back to relying on parental support to pay bills in their late 20's and 30's. One of my son's friends mom is a single mom and when she could no longer afford rent had to camp in a tent with her son for 3 months until the state found her something. A hard-working woman couldn't even afford her 1 bedroom basement suite with government help and had to live in a tent with absolutely so security for her belongings, showering at the Y and trying to keep her son safe and things normal- that is how bad the situation has become here. So I try to feel gratitude for my busted sink, busted carpet that needed replacing 10 years ago, slumlords who don't give a shit about anything other than getting rent in on time, and my kids sleeping huddled together in the living room because there isn't enough space in his bedroom for 2. Because really, there is nothing else I can do. Rental vacancy is at less than 1% right now and there are no more of those really good deals you can find on weird rental websites that no one knows about. It's all extremely competitive and every rental gets hundreds of calls for walk-throughs. So basically, just fuck it all and thank god for my dinghy shack that I pay an arm and a leg for because it is better than nothing.