New data shows that there’s a high cost to being a renter in Canada — not only literally but figuratively as well.
Statistics Canada released results from its 2021-2022 Canadian Social Survey on Monday, which underscore the fact that those living in rental accommodations generally experience “lower quality of life across several dimensions of well-being” compared to those living in an owned household.
“When compared with homeowners, renters were over 15 percentage points more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs and over 11 percentage points less likely to report high overall life satisfaction,” StatCan said.
“Tenants were also less likely to report a strong sense of belonging to their community and were more likely to report feelings of loneliness.”
With quality of life being so strongly linked to financial security — or lack thereof — StatCan’s data implies that life satisfaction is particularly low for those living in Toronto and Vancouver, where shelter costs take a massive bite out of household income.
In Toronto, for instance, 30.3% of households reportedly live in unaffordable housing and 12.6% of households spend over half their income on shelter costs, according to the 2021 census. In Vancouver, 20.9% of households in Canada live in unaffordable housing, while 7.7% are spending over half their income on shelter costs.
“Shelter costs are the biggest share of almost every household budget, and Canadians have been spending a larger share of their income on these costs: 31.4% in 2021 compared with 29.3% in 2019,” said StatCan.
“This leaves households with less money for other expenses, especially as other necessities, such as food, rise in price as well. In the second quarter of 2023, almost 27% of households reported that it was difficult or very difficult to meet their financial needs, compared with less than 19% in late 2021.”
