Two international students at UBC in Vancouver live in a camper van. A young family in rural Saskatchewan bought an affordable but very old farmhouse to fix up. A woman in Calgary is living in that city's first shipping container laneway home.
Young Canadians across the country are getting creative when it comes to housing.
These stories, and 11 more, are at the heart of Unlocked, a new personal storytelling series by gen Zers and millennials across Canada in collaboration with CBC Creator Network. Forty-two storytellers from B.C. to Nova Scotia produced short films and personal essays, each offering an intimate, first-person look at their generation's housing situation.
The series comes at a time when many Canadians are grappling with a tightening rental market, and rising housing prices.
In the last decade, Canada has been losing affordable rental units, those available to individuals making $30,000 a year or less, far faster than new ones are being built, a recent CBC Fifth Estate investigation found.
And in last week's new federal budget, dubbed the "housing budget," the government announced several measures they promise will cool the Canada's red-hot housing market. Some aren't so sure. "There's a lot of smoke and mirrors here," said David Hulchanski, a housing and community development professor at the University of Toronto, told CBC News.
Meanwhile, young Canadians, gen Zers and millennials are still in that housing pinch. But just how bad is it for young adults finding places to live within their means? What challenges do they face? Will they ever own a home? Maybe they already do, or don't want to. These questions were at the heart of the personal stories in Unlocked.
Caption: Winnipeg filmmaker Samantha Don, second from left, discovered that finding affordable housing today means living with roommates. Don lives with her partner Luke, left, her sister Ally Don, and her boyfriend, Ryan Luke (in glasses). (Alexander Decebal-Cuza)
Caption: A new documentary highlights two international students at the University of British Columbia, who have chosen to live in an RV. Others are forced into similar circumstances. (Van City)
Image | How cheap was it to rent an apartment in Montreal? Image 1
Caption: In Eve Parker Finley’s first video for the Creator Network, she looks at old classified ads to see what apartments used to cost in the ‘90s, ‘00s and ‘10s. (CBC)
Caption: Shymar Brewster, who goes by the moniker 'Lindasson,' grew up in Caldwell in Ottawa's west end. The hip-hop artist says the community built him into the performer he is today. (Jean-Jacques Ngandu)
Caption: Winnipegger Maribeth Tabanera got their finances in order and made a plan to chip away at a debt they accumulated over years. They made a few significant changes to how they spent and saved money. (Quan Luong)
Caption: One day Brad Parker found a handwritten note stuck in the door. It was from a grandchild of the original property owner, Alfred Cram. (Jenalene Antony)
Caption: Kian James (they/them) is a recent university graduate and renter in Regina, Sask. who's been discriminated against by previous landlords because they identify as non-binary/ transgender. (Louise BigEagle/For CBC Creator Network)
Caption: Kevin Shaw says though he and his husband Ben Jaremko were grateful to be able to buy their first home, paying $440,000 for a stacked condo in Ottawa's east end was disheartening. (Submitted by Kevin Shaw)
Caption: Documentary filmmaker Jason Cipparrone is pictured in Toronto on Jun. 2, 2021. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Unlocked: Housing stories by young Canadians is a national storytelling series by the CBC Creator Network. These personal stories, produced primarily by gen Zers and millennials, reveal the challenges young Canadians face finding affordable housing, their creative solutions and their hopes for the future. Check out the website here.
Image | Unlocked banner
Caption: (Adam Myatt for CBC)
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