Photo: Christy Mackinnon

Mackinnon's five children

A South Okanagan single mother-of-five fears she is days from being homeless, as she struggles to find housing in a white-hot rental market.

“It's a very stressful situation,” said Christy Mackinnon, who needs to be out of her two-bedroom condo at the end of the month.

Mackinnon moved to Oliver near the end of 2015, escaping an abusive relationship in Alberta. She is being forced to move because her landlord is selling the property, and since getting notice two months ago, has searched for a new home every day.

WIth a budget of $1,200, Mackinnon is hoping for a three-bedroom in or near Oliver, but will settle for a two-bedroom unit anywhere between Summerland and Osoyoos.

“I can't really be fussy right now,” she said on Friday afternoon.

In addition to the regular challenges of finding a place to live in a region with a near-zero vacancy rate, Mackinnon says prospective landlords have turned her away because of her children.

“As soon as I tell somebody I have five kids, it’s just like ‘heck no’, or ‘this house is too small,’” she said exasperated.  “I mean, we’ve been living in a two-bedroom condo now for well over a year, and well, it is tight quarters, but we’ve done fine.”

Her kids range in age from 5 to 16, in addition to an infant grandchild.

The vacancy rate for a two-bedroom unit in Penticton, the only centre with data in the South Okanagan, was pegged at 0.6% in October 2016 by CMHC. In the middle of tourist season, with more than 300 listings on AirBnB, most believe the rate to be essentially zero.

Mackinnon says she took a course on healing from abuse and positive thinking at the South Okanagan Women in Need Society in Penticton, which has helped her over the past weeks, “but it's getting really close, the whole just wait for something to happen kind of thing, I don't have much time to wait.”

“We have absolutely nowhere to go.”