FREELAND TOUTS ‘AFFORDABLE’ DEVELOPMENT RENTING 330-SQUARE-FOOT UNITS FOR $1,600

In a backgrounder, Freeland’s office cited the building as “a prime example of how the federal government is building more homes for everyone, including families, younger Canadians, and persons with disabilities.”

What the deputy prime minister did not mention is that Hudson House will be renting its 227 units at rates considered high even by the wildly inflated standards of Coastal B.C.

Two-bedroom units at Hudson House start at about $3,300 per month. The lowest priced one-bedroom unit is advertised at $2,410 per month.

The absolute lowest priced Hudson House unit being advertised is their A2 Studio Apartment, a micro-unit of just 330 square feet — about the size of two parking spots. The A2 starts at $1,680 per month.

Even with Victoria at the sharp end of some of the most inflated rents in Canadian history, units at Hudson House have asking rents that are higher than average.

According to the most recent report by Rentals.ca, the average asking rent for a Victoria two-bedroom is $2,743, with one-bedrooms averaging $2,116.

And all of these figures are well beyond the rents paid by the average Victorian. Since most Victoria renters are locked in at lower rates, according to CMHC the average rent paid in the city is $1,516 per month.

Freeland referred to Hudson House as an affordable rental project because it does technically meet the affordability requirements for the Apartment Construction Loan Program.

To qualify as an “affordable” unit, Hudson House needs needs only to ensure that 20 per cent of its units have rents that are less than 30 per cent of the median total income for the area.

As of 2021, the median total income for Victoria-area families is $111,390. So, any unit that costs less than a third of that — $33,417 per year — is considered “affordable” by the federal government.

In just a three-month period last year, Canada added 430,635 new people — easily placing Canada among the top five fastest-growing countries on Earth. That’s an average of 5,000 newcomers per day.

This means that even if every single Hudson House unit ends up housing a family of five, it will account for just five hours’ worth of new immigration.

Freeland’s visit to Hudson House also included an aside in which she seemed to hint at B.C. being superior to her home region of the Prairies.

“How lucky you are to live in this amazing city — wow,” Freeland told the assembled Victoria press corps, before referring to a line from the Margaret Laurence novel The Diviners that “for Prairie people the real-life version of dying and going to heaven is to move to B.C.”