‘It is desperate,” Violet Hayes, executive director of the Island Crisis Care Society, said Tuesday.
“It’s really challenging. We regularly get calls from people that are asking us do we have any leads. It’s just almost impossible [for] people on fixed incomes. [It is] so hard to find a place.”
The market is getting tighter as people move to Nanaimo, she said. The city estimated its 2019 population at 98,957 and anticipates reaching 106,254 by 2024.
The vacancy rate in Nanaimo, which has 4,132 rental apartment units, has declined even though more than 400 new units were completed in 2020. Because demolitions and renovations took many of the existing rentals out of the total pool, the overall increase was only four per cent, or about 150 additional units, said Pershing Sun, a senior analyst with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.