Vancouver city council to consider rent control on SROs

The cost of some rental units in Vancouver is causing concern over the potential impacts on the city’s low-income population, and city council is now considering new rent controls on Single Room Occupancies, known as SROS.

“We’re losing low-income stock, and there’s no place for people to go and they become homeless,” said Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson.

She says for many, SROs are the last resort before having to live on the street, and they’re becoming harder to rent.

“I think it’s long overdue because we’ve already lost hundreds of rooms in the Downtown Eastside. Their rents have gone up, too — some of them are as much as $1,000 or even more for a 120-square-foot room with no bathroom or kitchen,” Swanson said.

She says the city has been asking for rent controls on SROs for the last four years.

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The only kind of rent control in B.C. right now is the amount landlords can increase rents by each year. During the pandemic, that rent increase was frozen, but starting in 2022 the increase can go up by 1.5 per cent.

But when a tenant leaves, the landlord can raise the rent as much as they want, and that’s the loophole that these investor-landlords have been taking advantage of.

Swanson would rather see a report that says ‘when tenants leave, landlords can only raise the rent by the amount of inflation or by 5 per cent plus inflation depending on what the rent is now.”

High demand for rentals and speculative investment continue to pressure the housing stock in B.C., and many are reporting rising cost of living in recent months, with low supply further impacting the bottom line.

City staff estimate the average rent of a privately-owned SRO could increase to $769 by 2029.

“I’m hoping against hope that it will pass because it will be one way of cutting off a pipeline to homelessness,” said Swanson.

City council will next meet on the rent control matter on Nov. 17.