Opinion: Caregiving shouldn’t come with impossible housing choices | Daily Hive

December 2025 construction groundbreaking on the affordable housing project at 450 Pacific St., Vancouver. (Entre Nous Femmes Housing Society)

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by Lillian Chau, who is a nonprofit housing leader in British Columbia and the CEO of Entre Nous Femmes Housing Society.

Caregiving is essential to how communities function, yet too many families across British Columbia are being forced to make impossible tradeoffs: rent or groceries, staying housed, or falling behind.

We cannot claim to value caregivers while so many are being priced out of a place to live.

Housing insecurity does not affect everyone equally. Across British Columbia, 28 per cent of women-led households are in core housing need. Lone-parent families make up just 19 per cent of all households, yet nearly half of children in these families live in poverty. In fact, lone-parent families account for 53 per cent of children living in poverty in the province. A single parent working full-time at minimum wage still falls about $19,500 below the poverty line.

You might also like:

These pressures show up in how people are forced to live. Many move between temporary arrangements, share overcrowded spaces, or remain in housing that does not meet their needs because there are no alternatives. In emergency shelters, 90 per cent of families are led by single women.

This is a sign that the housing system is failing many of the people carrying the greatest responsibility at home.

Non-profit housing providers are working to meet this need by addressing the gap between what families can afford and what the housing market provides. As a nonprofit housing leader myself, I’ve seen firsthand that nonprofits are central to delivering deeply affordable housing across the province, but our ability depends on sustained public investment, including through federal initiatives like Build Canada Homes that are designed to accelerate the delivery of affordable housing.

At the same time, the need is growing. Findings from November 2025 show that families with children now make up 37 per cent of the BC Housing waitlist in Metro Vancouver, which has grown by 77 per cent since 2019. Demand for affordable housing continues to rise, yet development is slowing at a critical moment.

Recent provincial budget decisions, including the pause of the Community Housing Fund, are delaying projects that were intended to serve women-led households, single parents, and other equity-deserving groups. For non-profit housing providers, this means projects that are already in development are now stalled or uncertain.

These decisions have direct consequences. Housing that was planned, designed, and needed does not get built on time, or at all. It also strains the non-profit sector’s ability to plan long-term, retain partners, and continue delivering housing at the scale required. For families already navigating limited options, that delay means longer waitlists, fewer choices, and increased instability.

Housing policy determines who can access safe and stable housing. When public investment slows, the impact is not evenly distributed. Those with the lowest incomes and the least flexibility are the first to be pushed out.

The private market does not produce housing at rents that work for low- and moderate-income households. That gap is filled by non-profit and community housing providers, who deliver long-term affordability and stability, but only when supported by consistent public funding. This work also depends on coordinated investment across all orders of government, with federal funding playing a critical role alongside provinces, municipalities, and non-profits to deliver the housing communities need. Without sustained public investment, access to housing remains out of reach for many of the people who need it most.

Housing inequality is also shaped by overlapping systems. Indigenous, racialized, newcomer, and gender-diverse communities face additional barriers to accessing housing, while many policies and programs continue to assume stable, higher incomes and fewer caregiving responsibilities. Current systems are not designed for the realities of single-income households or for people navigating instability, including those leaving unsafe environments. Non-profit housing providers are often the ones responding to these gaps directly, but are limited by funding constraints and policy decisions beyond their control.

Housing is the foundation of a stable life. It determines whether people can remain in their communities, maintain employment, support their families, and plan beyond the immediate future. It shapes health outcomes, educational opportunities, and long-term wellbeing for children.

Slowing public investment does not reduce demand. It limits the capacity of the organizations working to meet it. Addressing this requires a clear and sustained approach. Public investment in deeply affordable housing needs to continue, alongside a pathway to move forward projects that are already planned and ready to deliver.

Right now, thousands of homes across B.C. are stalled due to recent funding decisions, despite significant investment and years of work by non-profit and Indigenous housing providers. These are homes that families need now, not years from now.

If we are serious about supporting caregivers, children and single-income households, then the government must create a clear pathway to move forward the projects that are already planned and ready to deliver. This means restarting projects from the Community Housing Fund intake, supporting organizations that have incurred pre-development costs, and restoring stability and predictability in non-market housing programs.

Caregivers and families cannot afford continued delays. Non-profit and Indigenous housing providers are ready to build. The homes are planned. Communities are waiting. What’s needed now is a clear commitment from the government to move these projects forward.

You might also like: