This is the best summary I could come up with:
The situation where a full-time worker still can’t find an affordable rental option is becoming more common, said Annie Hodgins, executive director of the Toronto-based non-profit Canadian Centre for Housing Rights.
A recent CBC News analysis of more than 1,000 neighbourhoods across Canada’s largest cities found that fewer than one per cent of rentals are both vacant and affordable for the majority of the country’s renters.
In October 2023, across the 35 metropolitan areas CBC News analyzed, only 1,400 bachelor or one-bedroom homes were vacant and located in neighbourhoods that full-time minimum-wage workers could afford.
The number of people who work full time and can’t afford rent is a “major concern,” Aled ab Iorwerth, deputy chief economist of the CMHC, told CBC News.
People will make sacrifices to ensure they can pay their rent, including cutting their budget for food and medication, Hodgins, of the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, said.
And younger people may struggle to pay their student loans, or delay going back to school or starting families — all to make rent or because of lack of space, she said.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
A consumer group is urgently calling on the federal government to follow other jurisdictions in the U.S and Europe and bring in legislation to stem the slide toward a cashless society.
A recent online poll of some 1,500 people commissioned by a different group, Payments Canada, found that a majority of respondents were worried about the prospect of cashless stores and want to maintain the option to use cash — which is free from bank fees, isn’t susceptible to privacy breaches and can be used during internet outages.
“For many — such as Indigenous peoples, unhoused individuals, older Canadians, victims of domestic abuse and others who are vulnerable — cash is a beacon of economic security, a source of financial autonomy, an emergency lifeline and an emblem of cultural traditions,” Ahmed wrote.
In 2019, Philadelphia became the first city in North America to prohibit “a person selling or offering for sale consumer goods or services at retail from refusing to accept cash as a form of payment.”
In New York, the regulation proposes fines of up to $1,500, with the councillor who sponsored the rules declaring that a ban on cashless businesses protects privacy, equity and consumer choice.
In Ireland, the law would require a cash option at businesses like pharmacies and grocery stores that sell essential products and services.
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