'The housing crisis is the number one issue': Victoria MP taking city's housing stories to Ottawa

Saanich, B.C. -

Sandra McMullen sits with her daughter Fiona on the couch in their Saanich home, as she reads aloud a card she found in Fiona’s school bag.

“Can we have a home that is helpful for us, from Fiona,” McMullen reads allowed. “It brought a tear to my eye because she’s obviously thinking about this while she’s at school.”

The family of four has been searching for a rental for four months. This, after the owner of their current house decided to move in.

“We’ve been applying to every ad that comes out and for the 10 ads we apply to, we will maybe hear back from one,” said McMullen. “It’s almost always to say that sorry, there’s 100 other people applying.”

Currently, the couple are paying just over $1,400 a month. They have a budget of $2,300, but still haven’t found a home to rent.

Coman O’Dell is Sandra’s husband.

“You know, one-and-a-half bedrooms for four people for $2,000 a month isn’t going to work,” said O’Dell.

Earlier this week CTV News shared the story of Valma Sampson’s family, who were on the brink of homelessness. They had been living in a local hotel, but their money has run-out.

Laurel Collins, the Member of Parliament for Victoria, will be taking their story to Ottawa on Monday, to put a face on the region’s housing crisis.

“The housing crisis is the number one issue that I hear from people in our community,” Collins said. “We need this government to take the housing crisis seriously … to invest in building truly affordable housing … To take on flipping and foreign buyers.”

After Valma’s story aired, the phones lit up at the Hotel Zed with people wanting to help the family. That gave Accent Inns, the hotel’s owner, an idea.

“When we see a story like Valma’s on the news, we cannot ignore that,” said Trina Notman, vice president of communications with Accent Inns and Hotel Zed.

The company has now teamed up with the United Way and launched a program called “Hotels for Families in Need.”

The program launched Friday morning and will provide families with emergency hotel funds to prevent them from being left homeless.

“We really want to help as many families as we can,” said Notman. “I’m a private business and this isn’t my day job, but we’ve done it in 24 hours and it was easy to do.”

“Hopefully, we can help a lot of people.”

Donations to the fund can be made on the United Way website.

On Friday, B.C.’s Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing David Eby told CTV News in a statement:

“People are finding themselves in a Hunger Games-style struggle, competing to access the limited supply of rental housing. We need to dramatically increase the number of homes for people to rent and buy. We are working with municipalities to get more housing built sooner to respond to this significant demand.”

The the Federal Ministry of Housing says more than 2,000 units of rental housing – including more than 1,000 affordable units and 400 shelter-rate units – will be created in Victoria’s Capital Regional District as part of the federal government’s National Housing Strategy.

For now, time is running out Sandra McMullen and her family. They will be going into arbitration with their landlord on Feb. 10. If that doesn’t go well, they could be forced to leave on Feb. 14.