According to the latest list released by the Canadian Rental Housing Index, rental supply and affordability in Brampton are both at a critical level.
The index, which used data from the 2016 long-form census, scores communities out of 50 from five indicators — affordability, overspending, income gap, overcrowding, and bedroom shortfall.
The data comes from communities across Canada with more than 4,000 people and 500 households classified as renters. In the end, more than 800 regions and municipalities were compared.
Collectively, Peel Region ranked the third worst in the country with a ranking of 32.4, coming in just behind York Region and Toronto.
On its own Brampton doesn’t fare as badly as neighbouring Mississauga. Brampton is ranked at 32.29, while Mississauga is ranked fifth-worst in Canada with a score of 38. At 39.5, Richmond Hill is ranked the worst, even worse than Toronto, which sits at 38.1.
But even though Brampton doesn’t rank within the top 10 worst cities, rental housing in the city is still considered at a critical level, and with 12,000 new people moving into the city yearly, it’s not expected to get better anytime soon.
In 2016, Brampton had a reported 167,930 households, 33,585 of those were considered rental households. The average cost of rent and utilities in the city was $1,225 per month, above the provincial average of $1,109.
In that same year, the average renter in the city earned a yearly income of $58,597. Forty-two per cent of households in Brampton were spending more than 30 per cent — the recommended safe allocation — of their annual incomes on rent and utilities, while 20 per cent were spending more than 50 per cent.
Comparatively, Mississauga was made up of 240,660 households, 66,655 or 27.7 per cent of which were renters in 2016, earning an average of $58,272 yearly.
The average cost of rent and utilities in Mississauga was $1,281 per month.
According to the data from the index, 46 per cent of renters in Mississauga were spending more than 30 per cent on rent and utilities each year and 23 per cent were spending more than 50 per cent.
For very low-income earners, the numbers look pretty grim. They would have to fork out 66 per cent of their income to afford a rental in Brampton and a whopping 88 per cent on one in Mississauga.
According to the index, some of the most affordable places to live in Ontario are Perth, Huron, and Cochrane.
To view the index and find out more visit rentalhousingindex.ca.
