FREDERICTON — New Brunswick's long awaited answer to the housing crisis came weeks ago, but the slow moving policy came with few details.
For many in the province, rent is more than 50 per cent of their monthly budget.
And students getting ready for the upcoming school year are feeling the crunch.
"Well I guess I make a lot of sacrifices let me tell you,” said IT student Launcelot Smith-Bernett.
“I've never found so many ways to make Mr. Noodles and but even those are going up so that kind of sucks,” Smith-Bernett added.
While some people are struggling to put food on the table, the minister responsible for housing says we don't have the details, because they haven't worked them out yet.
“We had six months that we put all our focus and effort into talking to all the stakeholders across the housing continuum to put together our housing strategy,” explained Jill Green, New Brunswick’s Minister Responsible for Housing.
“Once we put the strategy together we began the detailed work on the programs that we announced in the strategy,” Green said.
A rent bank to help tenants overcome barriers or unexpected costs was announced but perimeters and a timeline for the program was not.
"Am I surprised that we don't have details, no,” said Tobin LeBlanc Haley, University of New Brunswick co-director of Home RL Lab and assistant professor.
“The housing strategy was lacking in a lot of details about a lot of programs they’re going to introduce,” LeBlanc Haley added.
Both researchers and government agree, the rent bank should not be overseen by the province.
"The government can't run the rent bank,” LeBlanc Haley said. “It could be a conflict of interest for the government.”
The former social development minister said when they announced the funding for the new public housing that the government of New Brunswick is one of the biggest landlords in the province.
Green says don't expect any in-depth details on the rent bank until the legislature sits in October.
"We'd really like to engage with an outside entity to take ownership of this program,” Green said. “And to work with people that need the assistance but we need to select the right group.”
