‘It’s like a punishment’: Renters’ golden years tarnished by BC Housing backlog

Seventy-six-year-old Shemin Hudda can’t afford to move from her rodent-infested Vancouver apartment because her pension won’t cover Vancouver’s current market rent.

“Many a times I think to myself, what have I done in life to deserve this? It’s like a punishment,” she said.

Hudda has lived in her Heather Street one-bedroom unit for 30 years. But last winter, her building was invaded by mice. She said her landlord hired exterminators, but the poison traps placed in her suite had little effect.

“I’m done. I killed eight. I can’t live there any longer,” said Hudda, who is single and lives on a pension, a portion of which comes from her 26 years as a full-time maintenance worker for Air Canada.

“For 46 years I have worked in this country, I’ve contributed to this country,” said Hudda, whose family came to Canada after then-president Idi Amin expelled South Asians from Nigeria in 1972.

With the ongoing presence of rodents affecting her mental health, Hudda decided to apply for subsidized housing through the BC Housing Registry.

BC Housing states that the registry “provides a centralized database of applicant information to non-profit and co-operative providers of affordable housing.”

But when Hudda brought her application to a BC Housing office at the end of May, she was told that no one would look at it for three to four months. Hudda doesn’t know what she’s going to do if she doesn’t receive a subsidized unit.

“Unless I get help, I become a street person. I’d have to because I can’t live like this anymore.”

Vancouver seniors on the BC Housing Registry told Global News they’ve experienced little to no communication on the progress of their applications, a lack of transparency and long wait times.

When 67-year-old Jerry Schulz moved into a basement suite in Hastings Sunrise in 1987, his rent was $390 a month. In February 2023, the landlord served him with an eviction notice.

“They want the suite for their son,” Schulz said.

Schulz, who owned a sports memorabilia business for most of his working life and is an avid photographer, lives on a basic pension that he supplements by working occasionally at trade shows. He paid $800 a month for the two-bedroom suite at the time of his eviction, which wasn’t enough to secure him an apartment in his neighbourhood – or anywhere else in the city of Vancouver.

After 13 months of searching, he moved into a shared house in Burnaby, leaving behind his home of 38 years as well as his friends and neighbours.

“This doesn’t really feel like a neighbourhood here. It feels more like a family,” said Schulz of the block he used to call home.

Schulz signed up for the BC Housing Registry in February 2023 and put his name down for multiple housing units. He said he hasn’t received any communication from the registry about his position on the list or his estimated wait time.

“The only thing I ever heard from them was it’s time for you to renew if you want to stay on the list,” said Schulz.

Sybilla Rulf’s application for the BC Housing Registry was approved in 2016. Until 2024, she lived in a basement suite near Granville Street and West 43rd Avenue. Despite not having a “real” kitchen, she made it work because she could afford the $550 a month in rent.

But when the landlord died and the landlady sold the house, Rulf had to find new housing, and fast.

Seventy-seven-year-old Rulf came to Canada as a refugee in 1976, three years after the Chilean coup d’etat in which Augusto Pinochet seized power. She originally settled in Montreal and studied at McGill University. She earned a PhD in psychology and worked with Doctors Without Borders. She now lives on a pension.

Rulf said she spent around five hours each day for three months searching but was unable to secure housing on her $1,000 budget. As the reality of ending up in a shelter grew closer, she reached out to community and service organizations, and even contacted her MLA.

Then, a woman Rulf met at a seniors’ centre told her she had a contact who could get her into a building downtown.

Just days away from homelessness, Rulf met with the contact. She was able to bypass the registry she spent eight years on and secure a one-bedroom apartment in a City of Vancouver-managed building. Rulf knows she jumped the queue.

“I don’t think it’s fair that you have to have a contact to get housing because what happens with all the people who don’t have a contact?” said Rulf.

In the last five years, the number of households on the BC Housing Registry increased by 66.2 per cent, according to the Metro Vancouver Housing Data Book. As of 2024, there were 2,580 seniors in the City of Vancouver waiting for subsidized housing, making up almost 30 per cent of the 7,698 total seniors waiting in Metro Vancouver municipalities.

Michael Volker, executive director of 411 Seniors Centre Society, said the issue for seniors isn’t just homelessness, it’s housing precarity, and that his staff is seeing a remarkable increase in the number of seniors living with housing issues.

“It’s not just about looking for housing because they’re homeless, it’s because they’re not feeling secure in their current housing,” said Volker, who has worked at the centre for two and a half years.

Volker acknowledges the City of Vancouver’s 2024 release of the Seniors Housing Strategy as a “really positive first step.” But he added there needs to be more focus on providing below-market housing because the actual number of below-market suites is “way below the demand.” Volker also said the term can be misleading.

“Technically, if the market is at $2,500 a month for a two-bedroom, you could be at $2,499 and be below market,” he said.

The federal government is pushing the provinces, said Volker, which in turn are pushing the municipalities to build more housing. But he also said that one of the challenges of building in Vancouver is the NIMBYism that blocks the creation of social housing in areas that traditionally do not have it.

“It’s not as if there’s a long list of places where you can build this type of housing,” Volker said.

Dan Levitt, B.C.’s Seniors Advocate says he’s concerned about the number of seniors currently at risk of homelessness.

In 2024 there were 14,000 seniors in the province accepted onto the Housing Registry, and only six per cent – approximately 800 seniors provincewide – received housing, according to Levitt.

Twenty per cent of British Columbians are seniors, said Levitt, adding that, in a decade, that number will increase to one person in four.

And with 25 per cent of B.C. seniors — defined as people aged 65 years and older — living on less than $2,000 a month, Levitt said the pension amount that some seniors receive is really a “forgotten story.”

Levitt said the province is “just not investing in the kind of housing that’s needed and where it’s needed,” but that there has been some progress made that is encouraging.

“We certainly have to do a lot more going forward as the population of seniors continues to grow,” he added.

As to wait times for housing, Levitt says that it is important there be transparency and predictability about how long that wait is going to be. He also said that units go to those in crisis first.

“If there’s a severe event, you’re going to rise to the top of the list, and that’s how you’re going to find that housing,” he said. “And that’s why we’ve rationed and triaged, if you will, a scarce resource of this affordable housing.”

Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon told Global News that BC Housing gives priority to people on the growing Housing Registry list who are the “most in need.”

“When you have a shortage of housing available, the most vulnerable people are the ones who struggle the most, seniors, newcomers, young people,” said Kahlon, adding that 85 per cent of the people on the registry have been there for less than five years.

As to the transparency of the list, he said the province gives not-for-profits the flexibility to ensure whoever gets into available units has the right needs for their building.

“I can see how that would be frustrating for some seniors,” he said.

Kahlon said the City of Vancouver has been “very responsive to fast-track a lot of our affordable housing projects,” but in this case, fast track means three years instead of five or six.

There are about 5,000 units currently in progress in the City of Vancouver, said Kahlon, although some of these are “in process” to be approved at the local government level.

According to numbers obtained from the City of Vancouver Housing Strategy office, there are currently around 2,200 social housing units that will “complete progressively through 2025 to 2027.”

“What we’re trying to do is scale up our affordable housing at a pace to make up for almost 20 years of not investing in affordable housing,” said Kahlon, who said this is the result of decisions by both federal and provincial governments.

“We are making up for lost time, and it takes time to build housing and get it online.”

A recent press release from Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission said that one in three of its shelter clients is now over the age of 55, and that the charity is seeing more and more senior clients with cognitive issues, including Alzheimer’s.

Kahlon acknowledged the additional pressure at shelters as the senior population increases.

“It is called a (housing) crisis because it’s a major challenge that we’re dealing with,” he said.

For Hudda, the prospect of waiting years to escape her rodent-infested apartment has left her feeling despondent.

“There are days when I feel I just want to end it,” she said.

And Rulf knows where she’d be if she just waited for BC Housing to get back to her.

“I would be on the street.”