‘How did it come to this?': Penticton seniors struggling to find affordable housing as community resources overwhelmed

Two Penticton seniors were nearly homeless last month after needing to leave their apartment and struggling to find any affordable housing.

Brenda McCall, 72 and her husband, 83, have been on a waiting list for months to get into an assisted living facility. He is dealing with the last stage of bone marrow cancer and dementia, while she has PTSD.

The McCalls said they were forced to leave their apartment after a neighbour and landlord dispute. The family searched for any affordable housing and came up empty, only being saved at the last minute by support from a local charity to help get them a month at a motel.

McCall said she tried applying for BC Housing’s subsidized units and was met with a waiting list of two to three years.

Her daughter, Cat Parker, tried to help.

“I've pretty much exhausted all of our resources," Parker said. "I'm scared for them.”

Living in a one-bedroom apartment, Parker doesn’t have the option to take her parents in.

She tried OneSky, the Canadian Mental Health Association, Interior Health, Social Services, the South Okanagan Similkameen Brain Injury Society, the Salvation Army, and numerous other agencies, many of which did what they could in the face of overwhelming need from others just like the McCalls.

Even the emergency housing and homeless shelters are reportedly too full to take them in, a last-ditch option Parker said she doesn't want her parents to have to face.

McCall is also afraid that if her husband goes into care, there won’t be room for her, too, and she will be left to find housing on her own with her $1,100 per month pension.

“Look at the people living on the street. They can't afford the rent, and you have people saying, ‘Oh, they're all drug addicts.’ It's not true," McCall said.

“By the time you pay your rent, you're in overdraft every month. And this is what's happening to all my friends I talked to that are seniors."

Community agencies help — as much as they can

The SOS Brain Injury Society is one of the resources Parker found helpful. They connect people in need with housing-related resources in the community, including rentals at properties they operate, when possible.

“We often don't have vacancies … We have a continuing list of folks who are searching for those rent subsidies for housing, for any kind of housing support. And so we're often not able to do that for people,” executive director Linda Sankey said.

Plus, there is always a huge volume of people looking, often orders of magnitude higher than available spots.

It is even more challenging for seniors on a fixed or limited income, putting them in a “significant crisis.”

“I don't know of any rentals in Penticton, even for a room that would be $1,000 a month, but that money is supposed to cover all of their utilities, their phone, their rent and their food and possibly their medications too,” Sankey said.

OneSky Community Resources does similar work.

Director of programs and services Heiko Ryll said they are one of 15 partners of the SHINE program, which works to assist adults aged 60 and older find housing, sometimes providing damage deposits, first month's rent and moving costs.

“Where we are in our community, we're very limited at that with our non-market housing, but that's something that we're working on with the City of Penticton," Ryll said.

What's missing is a better option for emergency or transitional housing.

“Lots of people fall between the cracks, between assisted living and between community living,” Ryll said.

The local emergency shelter is being used for longer-term placement, because people in the shelter also can't find something in their affordability range.

“Even our temporary winter shelter has been continuously full since the middle of November, and they don't have a big turnover there. So it is a problem, and I know the system is working towards some solutions," Sankey said.

What Penticton is building

Part of the City of Penticton’s 2025 budget was to support housing affordability with the creation of an affordable housing incentive policy, increase development of housing on city-owned land and implementation of the Social Housing and Infrastructure Plan (SHIP), a report on which will be released later this year.

At the end of April, the city announced a developer would create a 60-unit rental project on Eckhardt Avenue with 20 to 30 per cent of units rented at below market rates.

That construction is not likely to begin until 2026.

The Penticton Indian Band and the City of Penticton are pushing for provincial programs, with implementation of the Homeless Encampment Action Response Team and Homeless Encampment Action Response Temporary Housing support agreement.

BC Housing has been working on the Skaha Assembly Redevelopment, after the Provincial Rental Housing Corporation started purchasing motels for large-scale redevelopment on Skaha Lake Road in May 2021.

That has a a goal to break ground on Phase 1 by 2026/2027.

Ryll said there are currently 1,540 units of non-market housing in the city, which make up nine per cent of total local housing. 71 per cent of the non-market housing is utilized by seniors.

Sankey acknowledged that if you look around Penticton, several housing projects are underway, but that does not solve the immediate issue.

“The problem is we've got a variety of people who need that housing now, and asking people to wait two to four years for something to be built, that's a pretty hard thing to be facing when you don't have somewhere to go tonight.”

An aging population

One in every five people in British Columbia is over 65. In Penticton, it's one in three.

“So we're definitely the place for the federal government to take a look at, going, 'What can we do in a smaller market, and test out some housing and some affordable housing options for our senior population?' Because it's estimated that by 2030, the national average is going to be around 24 to 25 per cent [over 65]," Ryll said, citing Statistics Canada.

In 2023, United Way BC released a report titled Aging in Uncertainty: The Growing Housing Crisis for BC Seniors, with a coalition of B.C. non-profit community-based seniors organizations.

This focused on how more Penticton seniors are on the brink of homelessness due to a lack of affordability.

Often, the seniors in their report who needed help had been working all their lives, much like McCall and her husband.

Not giving up

The McCalls have a bridge, for now, but the future is still uncertain.

“My husband, for the last two or three days, has just been lying there wondering, ‘How did it come to this?’”

Both Ryll and Sankey confirmed they and their organizations continue to work with municipal, provincial and federal governments and agencies to push for better care for people just like the McCalls, and they are not giving up.

“It’s a real challenge to meet people where they're at every single day, knowing that there's days we're not going to be able to help them with what they're actually needing help with, but we will help them with the steps to become housed,” Sankey said.

“There are some programs that are really good and actually making a difference for people, but people have to continue to qualify and reapply every year."

People can still be connected to rental assistance programs, subsidies, and non-profits to help.

“We live in a very special place in the South Okanagan, where our community comes together better than anywhere else that I've seen. Everybody really has a set a set goal, and it's aligned,” Ryll said.

“A lot of times, people won't reach out because they don't feel like they qualify for anything, but just reach out and give us a call ... We're here to help in all stages of life.”

Photo: Contributed

Two seniors were nearly homeless last month, after being evicted from their Penticton apartment and struggling to find any affordable housing.