By Kendall Worth!
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| Kendall, in front of buildings on Washmill Lake Dr. |
Perhaps you wonder where this title came from? How many of those people renting in places like Washmill Lake Drive or Larry Uteck are either living with roommates or are coupled up? These who asked this question, suggested that in these neighbourhoods people may be living with 4 roommates in a one bedroom apartment or up to 6 or 8 roommates in a 2 bedroom apartment. Further down in this post you will see I recently interviewed someone who is living in a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 room-mates in order to afford rent and living costs. However, I understand that this kind of crowded living is not limited to the one person I interviewed.
First:
I have been writing for years about the complex issues of housing and how things like low-income assistance rates, and people not having enough money to live on, is an issue. In this post, I bring to light Halifax's economy with the income assistance rates being what they are. A percentage of Halifax’s work force have jobs like restaurant servers, bar tenders, and, as I talked about in this post teaching assistants and library staff working at schools. In many locations/neighbourhoods in Halifax, rents start upwards of $1500 to $1800 a month. Of course, spiralling inflation is doing nothing to help the situation that people are living in with these days either. Recently, I interviewed one person who talked to me about her rent being $2100 a month with NO utilities included. She lives with 5 Room-mates in a 3 bedroom apartment, none of them are on Income Assistance or government assistance of any type.
For her and her 5 roommates to live in the 3 Bedroom apartment their rent is $2100 a month with nothing included. Her and all of her roommates all work full time but they share 2 roommates to each Bedroom.
The following is the break-down on how they are managing their finances while living together like this:
They pay $350.00 each toward rent alone.
plus they pay $200.00 toward their Nova Scotia power bill (Note - Their power Bill includes Electric Heat for the winter months and Air Condition for during the summer months)
plus $19.16 each toward a $115.00 Halifax water Bill
That each paying $569.16 a month for rent and utilities.
Then they pay Indivisibly for their Cell phones and internet, but she would not disclose those amounts. She actually told me that two of the roommates are working 2 part-time jobs in-order to live.
This example reflects what some sources say people who live in rental housing are resorting to in order to afford to live day-to-day life. This is in neighbourhoods like Washmill Lake and Larry Uteck. Rents on peninsula are higher.
They choose not to share a land-line for a telephone because they all have separate lives and they do not like the idea of sharing the same phone line. They all work different schedules for their employment. They all eventually want to get their own place, but in the mist of a housing crises that is easier said then done. My source tells me that that if they were not living together and sharing expenses, they would likely be living in a tent down-town; and they would not be able to afford to do stuff like go and visit family on holidays, buy Christmas presents, Ect.
Sources I have been talking to off and on this year have told me that even though University Students have been known to resort to doing things like living with 6 roommates in a 3 bedroom apartment for the longest time, now even young working people who have low wage jobs like like restaurant servers, and bar tenders, are also resorting to living like this.
The downside of living this way is that you give up a lot of your privacy, but they need to resort to this in order to keep rent affordable for themselves and to help each other out with managing living expenses.
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