Renters with disabilities live in fear of eviction. Now, this man with PTSD sleeps in a shed
Sidney Wood says he was evicted last month because he couldn’t pay his rent.
Wood, 41, couldn’t afford the $1,620 per month for a basement apartment in Edmonton that he shared with his two teenage children. Not after he and his wife separated in March, and not on his CPP disability income that he says is $1,403 per month.
So Wood, who is unable to work due to PTSD after 11 years as a correctional officer in a maximum security prison, had to move back to St. Theresa Point First Nation, an Oji-Cree reserve in Northern Manitoba. His children, who are 15 and 16, stayed in Edmonton with family.
Now, Wood sleeps in a makeshift shed on his father’s property, because there are already eight people living in the three-bedroom house. The shed is about 180 square feet. But that’s not the part that bothers him.
“I just miss my kids so much. That’s what kills me,” he told CBC News, weeping. “It’s just one thing after another after another.”
Wood reached out to CBC News because he wanted his story shared. He is one of the many people with disabilities who struggle to pay rent amid the rental housing crisis gripping the country.
A new survey from Statistics Canada shows that a disproportionate number of disabled renters are subject to eviction, and as the problem gets worse, housing advocates say it puts disabled people at greater risk of becoming homeless.
With surging prices and decreased availability, finding housing has become daunting. Less than one per cent of rentals are both vacant and affordable for the majority of the country’s renters, a recent CBC News analysis of more than 1,000 neighbourhoods across Canada’s largest cities found.
That situation becomes more dire for Canadians with disabilities, who have a lower median income — about $35,700 in 2023, according to CBC’s analysis of Statistics Canada data
