How much is your rent? New project aiming to grow capacity for non-profit housing wants to know
There’s a dearth of information when it comes to housing—especially rental housing—in areas of New Brunswick outside of the three big cities. But Peter Corbyn is hoping to change that, and he’s looking for help from Sackville renters.
Corbyn is a consultant working for the New Brunswick Non Profit Housing Association on a housing asset data map. He’s gathering information on housing costs, vacancies, suppliers, and basically anything that can help support further development of desperately needed affordable housing options.
“We need to come close to doubling our number of housing starts in the province relative to the 1990s,” says Corbyn. “And we’re facing a number of challenges to get there.”
Corbyn cites changing demographics leading to a reduction of skilled tradespeople in smaller communities, the rise in prices of construction and real estate, the pandemic in general, and the influx of new people moving to the province. Corbyn’s project will attempt to gather information to help smaller communities get in a better position for developing and financing affordable housing.
One component of Corbyn’s research is the gathering of accurate rental market data, especially for communities with populations under 10,000, for whom data is not currently published. “The average or median market rental rate in any given community in rural New Brunswick, whether it’s Charlotte County, Kent County, even Sackville, the peninsula, Carleton County… The rental rates are assumed to be the same for all of those regions,” says Corbyn, “which as we all know is not the case.”… Continue