The organization has seen a 50 percent increase in demand over the last five years
Niagara Regional Housing is reporting a significant jump in the demand for community housing.
The organization says demand has jumped by fifty percent in the last five years, and about 11,000 households are on the waitlist.
Donna Woiceshyn, Director of Housing Services and CEO of Niagara Regional Housing, says there are many factors behind the increase.
"There is a challenging rental market, a higher number of households on social assistance in Niagara and low turnover in community housing units, as households have nowhere to go."
She adds while the has been a slight increase in the vacancy rate over the last year, that's not the case for units less than $1,000 per month.
The challenges have resulted in regional council adjusting priorities regarding who gets on the list.
Changes include removing a hardship subcategory from the urgent priority list, as hardships are often subjective.
Woiceshyn also notes there is a lack of new community housing units, and there should be more support for the development of new units.
"We try to get people to look at building more of the one bedroom single type units that would be for those individuals."
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