Dear Editor,
It’s summer time.
The perfect time to kick back, enjoy the weather, hang out with friends, and move to a new home now that more places are opening up.
All of that might be true, if it wasn’t impossible to find affordable housing in Richmond, that accommodates your basic needs.
Scrolling through Craigslist daily, seeing the same ads re-posted.
The good ones being scams asking you to send them a deposit via AirBnB Global before receiving keys or viewing the apartment. The rest being labelled as “ABSOLUTELY NO PETS”.
Working at an animal shelter, this has also become an increasing problem, as many older animals are being surrendered because of the lack of pet-friendly housing available.
Left confused, depressed, stranded for months before finding someone who can take them...I digress.
Rental hunting has become extremely discouraging.
Working two part-time jobs that pay above minimum wage, with my other half who works full time and gets above minimum wage, both of us can still not afford a decent apartment in Richmond.
Bachelor suites with no laundry, no real kitchen (only a kitchenette!), no internet, listed for close to $1,000/month.
Places listed as $1,100/month claiming to be for “affordable.”
I’m from northern B.C., where we thought $900 for rent and no utilities of a two-bedroom place was pushing it. Richmond, and the Lower Mainland in general, is becoming impossible to live in.
Mansions being built where affordable housing could be placed instead. Affordable housing being about $1,000.
What about students?
What about the people working more than eight hours a day at minimum wage? Single parents? Inflation of rentals has really ruined Richmond for myself, and many others.
Bea Mundeling
RICHMOND
