Winnipeg is getting harder… to live in.

The rental vacancy rate for Manitoba was 1% last spring. I doubt much has changed since then. There’s simply not enough affordable apartments.

But, we’ve still got some of the cheapest rents in Canada.

Right now, the residents of 42 Langside Street enjoy some of the lowest rents in the city, but at the cost of the building quality. A recent arson attack crippled their wooden fire escape, and due to that and other necessary repairs, residents may get kicked out for weeks on end while it gets repaired.

This isn’t their fault for living in a cheap apartment, it’s not the landlord’s fault that a 13-year-old boy likes setting fires in the alley (word is it’s not even close to the first fire incident in that building this year).

Is it worth it to have cheap rent but be a target to vandalism? This is the question that goes through every apartment searcher’s mind when they peruse the downtown rental listings. Don’t ask what goes through their mind when they consider the West End or West Broadway.

Whatever happened to West is Best?

Winnipeg’s recent trend of condo-ization is disturbing. They take a once $350 apartment, pour some money into it and then sell it as a $100,000 condo. The condo fees alone are more than the previous rent on the apartment, with no guarantee that visible changes have been made.

Handy reminder courtesy of graffiti found in big box land

That is where our affordable apartments are going.

Others are just being renovated, cleverly circumnavigating rent control. When an apartment building gets X amount of money put into renovations they can raise the rent pretty much however much they want, completely outside of rent control.

It’s not uncommon for an apartment to go up a hundred dollars a month when it hasn’t actually been worked on, just the hallways.

That’s what’s also happening to 42 Langside. Before the fire happened, there were plans to do some basic repairs and to raise the rent about $75 across the board. The plans are still there, but now there are many more repairs to be done.

Winnipeg is getting to be a little like London (England, not Ontario). I have a friend who, in London, had to share a bedroom with another person just so they could afford the ridiculous rent. These people were not friends before, and this place was not in the best condition. Ok, so maybe we still have that on London, they usually fix things before making the rent too high, but still… I reminisce about the price of my first Wolseley apartment (One-bedroom, $291). I shudder to think of the calibre of reminiscing I’ll be doing if this trend in Winnipeg keeps up.

We may have to flee to Regina to find affordable rent.