Okanagan family living in bush-lack of affordable housing

[Walking Wounded]

These people work, they have jobs. You're suggesting welfare fraud, are you not?

No I am not. more like what garden girl posted above.

[Walking Wounded]

Oops double post

[Lady tehMa]

I don't think that is what they are suggesting at all. Gramma may be able to qualify for seniors' housing. She has already told us they don't qualify for programs because the family is too large and their combined income is too high. This is an extended family. If they were not all wanting to be in one house, they could possibly qualify for the programs which are already available. If they were in smaller groups, each groups income would be lower, and it would be easier to find the appropriate size home.

They are looking for a home to accommodate a family of 8. This appears to be much of the problem.

The trend is more people living alone - according to a Castanet article not long ago. https://www.castanet.net/news/Canada/203274/more-of-us-living-alone

"The big shift has been a shift away from families with children to empty nest couples or younger people deciding not to have children," said Doug Norris, chief demographer at Environics Analytics.

So because the trend is away from that, people are building smaller condos etc. Micro suites. And the big houses are being built for the people with money, because that is where the money is.

We can't tell the builders what to build - even Habitat for Humanity is building for smaller families. I feel badly for them too, but they're going to have to make a decision about location. I would never want to rent - I've seen horror stories on both sides of the equations; homes wrecked and people taken advantage of. We own - a small, old 3 bedroom house. We've put our money into upgrading as we can (but there is still a lot to do!). We can have pets if we want, make all the changes we want. The house was originally two bedroom, we added the third in the partially unfinished basement. No one is building for the middle class anymore because the middle class is disappearing.

I agree with gardengirl in that they will probably have to split up in order to find housing here. It's not ideal, but it is what it is. The other option is to find a place elsewhere.

These MLS offer some options - the first would need a lot of work
10134013
10136527 - this one is actually ready to go
10130818
10139887
10139895

Most are near the $350,000 price point, but the fact is that there isn't a lot under it.