Oleh Konyk and his wife Yaryna Shulyak are like proverbial ships passing in the night.
Working opposite ends of the day they rarely overlap, save for a brief period in the late afternoons.
From early in the morning he's an apprentice electronics tech at Coast Mountain Bus Company, and from 4 p.m. to midnight she's a care home worker.
Caught in the middle of their schedules is their soon-to-be, six-year-old daughter, Sofia. Care for her often has to be arranged during a brief gap as one parent arrives home while the other gets ready to leave for work.
It's a bind not uncommon to many families. But in this particular case the couple's "extended family" often fills in the child-minding gap. And that comes courtesy of the housing co-op they live in at Granville Gardens.
"It's hard to get someone to come babysit for just a half hour," says Yaryna, 34, who moved to Canada from Ukraine with her husband in 2005. "Here, it's no problem. I could call my neighbour in the morning to come and please help me out. And she will take Sofia to school. Or somebody else will help out. And that's really helpful for young families."
The close-knit community of 94 homes is an added bonus to the lower than market rent the family pays for their neatly appointed, two bedroom townhouse. It's a much-appreciated alternative to the high cost of market-based rent, or home ownership in a city like Richmond which puts many families like Oleh and Yaryna's out of the picture, and the community.
According to the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board's MLS Home Price Index, the benchmark price - defined as a typical property in the marketplace - to buy an apartment in Richmond was $347,200. For a townhouse that rose to $491,500. And a detached home was $932,700. All figures are for the month of April 2013.
At those levels, ownership is out of the question for the foreseeable future for Sofia's parents who left Ukraine with a bushel full of academic qualifications - he's was employed as an electronics engineer, and she studied as a chemical engineer - but were told they lacked the "Canadian-based" experience to be fully employed in those sectors here. Their unsubsidized rental rate of $900 a month at the co-op where they moved in last September fits their current budget. They estimate the market-based rent for a similar property would be around $1,500.
"Owning our own home? Most likely not, because right now if you look at the (housing) market it's so high and unaffordable," says Oleh, 38. "And if you do buy a house, then you are house broke. You only have money to pay your mortgage, property tax and utilities. And if you need renovations or a new roof, you'd need a second mortgage."
It would also mean not being able to send money back to Ukraine to help support their aging parents, or save enough for a trip back every few years to visit them in person.
"Maybe we could take a chance and buy, but then we could never afford to go back to Ukraine," Yaryna says. "And we could choose to live this life from cheque to cheque, but we wouldn't feel very secure."
"It would be work, then home, and work then home again," Oleh says. "It wouldn't make any sense. "I don't know if we want or need a house of our own."
It's a familiar story for Isabel Evans - simply turn back the clock 25 years.
She has lived in Granville Gardens since the late 1980s when she was a single parent to an eight-year-old son.
Although fully employed as a nurse, childcare costs and a high-rent left her with few affordable alternatives until she was accepted into a home at Granville Gardens.
"Even at that time, 25 years ago, I was paying over $500 a month. That was quite a bit," says Isabel, who is now a member of the board of directors for the Cooperative Housing Federation of BC.
"Because I didn't have any extended family here, moving into the co-op it was fantastic," says Isabel who moved to Canada from Scotland in 1968, first to Calgary, then Richmond in 1975. "It's a caring community. People really care for each other. They help their neighbours. It's almost like having an extended family. It's like living in a small town."
But there is a looming problem casting a pall over many co-op housing communities across B.C.
Those co-op residents who receive federal subsidies could face uncertain times, and may even lose their homes, when the federal government's assistance runs out in 2017.
According to the Co-ooperative Housing Federation of B.C., one quarter of housing co-ops in the province will be affected. That rep-resents about 1,500 households of the most vulnerable - low income earners, seniors and disabled people.
Those receiving a subsidy pay a rent equal to about a third of their income - the government assistance accounts for the remaining balance.
"There is a great risk some people will lose their homes, because, although their mortgages may be paid off, at the end of the operating agreement we still have to provide maintenance for all of the units," Isabel says. "And people on low income, they will not be able to afford that. They can't really afford to be paying any more than they are now."
That's because co-op members, just like regular renters, do not build up equity in their homes. So, whenever they leave the co-op, all they receive is value of the share they purchased to attain their unit. The range in B.C. today runs from around $2,000 to $7,000.
One thing that has made the coop model successful is the fact it houses a range of income groups. A To lose those who require subsidy, would not only put those people at risk of homelessness but would be a loss for co-ops as a whole.
Testament to the success of housing co-ops is the fact most have lengthy wait times. For Oleh and Yaryna it took about a year. In Evan's case, it was 18 months.
"Now, the wait lists are even longer for some people," Isabel says, "because, I believe, there are less rental spaces available."
Some families can wait up to three years or more.
"It really depends on the situation. If someone is waiting for a one bedroom home and a three bedroom town home comes up, then obviously they can't get the three bedroom townhouse," Evans says.
"A good match has to be made first."
For information about housing co-ops, visit the Co-operative Housing Federation of B.C. at chf. bc.ca.
(Next week, the News explores trends of a younger generation in regards to housing.)
