Many election issues and campaign promises would be irrelevant for most Canadians if they suddenly found themselves without a roof over their head.
For some organizations, the rallying cry to make affordable housing a priority election issue has left them with voices hoarse from years of effort.
The B.C. Rental Housing Coalition formed earlier this year by nine member groups spanning the non-profit, municipal and co-operative housing sector is just one of the amalgamated voices calling for increased awareness and action.
"Instead of focusing on our differences, we all recognize that the core issues facing our province are the same and that we need candidates seeking election in B.C. to prioritize them," said Tony Roy, executive director of B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association, in a press release. "Twenty years of inaction federally and population growth provincially has led to a huge supply issue here. If we don't act now, things are going to get worse before they get better."
Affordable housing has been on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) radar for years as well, and remains a key plank in the organization's election blueprint.
"Canadian municipalities are unable to keep up with the demand for affordable housing options," said an FCM-commissioned report on housing. "Protecting federal investments in social housing and creating incentives to increase rental housing will help keep vulnerable seniors in their homes and out of the health care system, and make housing more affordable for the one-third of Canadians who rent."
The FCM has been tracking national party platforms through its Hometown Proud initiative.
When it comes to housing, the Conservative Party committed $150 million over four years, beginning in 2016-17, to support social housing by allowing social housing providers to prepay their long-term, non-renewable mortgages without penalty.
The New Democrats have said they would appoint a minister responsible for urban affairs who would have a mandate to identify social housing investments worth extending as well as invest more in affordable housing and homelessness programs.
The Liberals have pledged a $19.7 billion investment in social infrastructure over 10 years, including affordable housing, and to renew federal leadership in affordable housing by helping to build more units, refurbishing existing ones and renewing co-operative agreements.
The Green Party announced it would create a national housing plan, which includes an outreach program to house chronically homeless people, ensuring a percentage of all newly built units are reserved for affordable housing and appointing a minister of housing.
Independent Cariboo-Prince George candidate Sheldon Clare has spoken in favour of what he calls flexible coalitions, where politicians can align themselves based on issue, as opposed to party lines.
But he's not jumping on board with some of the already proposed housing platforms.
"I think one has to be careful about signing on to everything that comes down the pipe," Clare said.
"What I find a lot with the Liberal and NDP campaigns is they try to treat symptoms, but they don't go to the root cause of the problem."
Those root causes of poverty include things like education and crime, said Clare.
"There are always going to be people who are poor. (Affordable housing's) certainly been something that's necessary to be able to get people the ability to live in an environment where there going to be able to have a place that's safe to live," he said. "It's a difficult thing and to do that require partnerships with all levels of government."
According to an FCM-commissioned report on housing, nearly one-third of Canadian households are renters but only 11 per cent of housing starts since 1996 have been intended as rental units.
Nationally, vacancy rates average below the three-per-cent mark and are even lower in Prince George, where it's closer to two per cent.
As older rental units get knocked down to make way for high-end, higher-priced condos, those looking for lower rent units are left with minimal options. And those tenants can span the demographic range from students, to young families to single professionals to seniors.
The days of striking out on your own at the age of 18 are turning into a nostalgic myth. According to the 2011 Canadian National Household Survey, 42.3 per cent of young adults aged 20 to 29 lived with their parents, up from 26 per cent in 1980.
Last year, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (CHRA) put forward a proposal for a new partnership with the federal government. Entitled Housing For All, the two-pronged approach calls for a fund to support the three Rs - capital repair, retrofit and replacement needs - as well as money to make sure affordable housing remains affordable.
New funding commitments for social housing from the federal government stopped in 1993 and tax incentive programs to boost the private rental market ended in 1984. Other measures for affordable housing introduced since the mid-1990s have been temporary in nature, as part of economic stimulus funding or part of provincially administered programs.
CHRA calls the idea that the withdrawal of federal money for social housing is made up in the funding to provinces and territories disingenuous. "To the point, by 2016, it is projected that the federal government will be saving more from its declining contribution to social housing than it is spending on the (Investment in Affordable Housing) initiative."
At its peak, the federal government spent $2 billion annually on social housing, according to a CHRA report.
That has come down to $1.6 billion annually to meet the existing contracts that still subsidize rent for low-income households or offset mortgage costs and is expected to drop to nothing by 2040.
"As existing operating agreements end, up to two-thirds of all social housing projects will not generate sufficient revenues to cover their operating costs with no other funding in place," said the report.
Up to 365,000 low-income households paying subsidized rents are potentially at risk of losing their homes, according to the report.
"If economic evictions of low-income households are to be avoided, present funding arrangements must be replaced by a new mechanism as operating agreements expire."
At a local level, expiring subsidies have already made their mark on the Prince George Metis Housing Society.
Back in 2010, the organization found itself in the awkward situation of having to sell off housing properties.
Through the federal program, the non-profit housing society received money to cover the gap between revenue from rent and monthly costs such as maintenance, property taxes and utilities.
But once mortgages on properties were paid off, those monthly cheques disappeared and the society was caught short.
Eight properties were sold to pay the bills and rents were raised to unaffordable levels for many tenants.
"There never was a plan for when the subsidy was going to come off," said housing society executive director Leo Hebert, who joined the organization in 2011, just in time to close the final deal.
About one-third of the society's units are without government subsidy, which means there had to be some new ideas.
The society looked at how it calculates rent, gearing it more towards income so that those making more money pay more rent.
The new policies are currently being tested, said Hebert.
"Nobody likes change. I don't like being the purveyor of that change either, but in order to stay sustainable, you have to," he said.
"And at the same time try to keep things affordable for the people that can least afford."
Urban aboriginal people, the society's clientele, have been identified as among the rental households most in need.
According to the CHRA, nearly 35 per cent of aboriginal households are in unsuitable housing or have to spend 30 per cent or more of before-tax income to access acceptable local housing.
The number of applications on file for the society's units are in the thousands.
"We get people coming in here regularly every week, looking for housing, looking for an affordable place to live," he said.
"They're from not just local surrounding communities, but out west and all over the place."
The society's housing stock has been fairly stagnant since the mid-1990s when the original federal social housing program ended.
"In Prince George, social housing was not building new houses - most of the later units were new but prior to that it was just a matter of buying a bunch of existing housing units and then turning them into low-income housing scattered throughout the city," Hebert said.
Metis Housing partners with other social agencies and housing groups such as the Prince George Native Friendship Centre and the Aboriginal Housing Management Association to fill gaps and try to educate those in power about its needs.
"We're working in a broken system and it needs to be fixed and we cannot be expected to do it by ourselves," he said.
Hebert sits on the city's homelessness and affordable housing committee, which is developing policy to drive construction of affordable units at the municipal level.
"It takes all levels of government, but the federal government needs to stay involved," Hebert said.
On Monday night, members of the city's planning department presented a proposal for a new multi-family and seniors housing incentives program.
The plan includes tax exemptions, development cost charge reductions and potential for Northern Development Initiative Trust grants to drive the creation of much-needed housing stock in preferred areas of the city, within walking distance to amenities or within already established neighbourhoods.
"We're not going to just sit and wait for the federal government to come up with... a new program," Hebert said.
"The demand and the need is there. We need to get on with it."
A previous version of this story included a photo of a building incorrectly identified as Victoria Towers.
