Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - According to data from the 2016 census, 20% of Quadra Island residents and 27% of Cortes Island residents are paying more for their homes in rent or mortgages than they can afford. More recent studies suggest that a significant number of families throughout the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) are so financially stretched that they are at risk of becoming homeless. 75% of the 'housing insecure' respondents to the ‘Collecting Stories of Where We Live’ survey on Cortes Island, and 33% on Quadra Island, are working. These are some of the people North Island-Powell River MP Rachel Blaney is referring to, when she talks about the need for a bar of dignity.
“One of the things that I'm really passionate about working for in my constituency, and in fact for all of Canada, is this idea of having a bar of dignity. We can't let them go under that,” she told Cortes Currents.
“What we're seeing now is a lot of people falling between the cracks. We see it in our communities, we see it in people who are couch surfing. We see it in people in some of our bigger communities where they're pushing their carts around because that is their home. We're just seeing a lot of working families doing all the right things, just doing everything they're supposed to be doing, and they're not making enough to make ends meet.”
Blaney reiterated the idea that people should not be paying more than 30% of their income on housing.
“If it gets over that, it really leads to a lack of stability which is not good for communities and it's definitely not good for seniors and families,” she explained.
“If people have enough, things like crime go down and community well-being goes up.”
