Who can actually afford to live here?
We dug into the numbers behind local housing costs — and what they mean for the families who've called this place home for decades.
Housing has always been expensive in cities. But something shifted in the last five years. What used to take a family two incomes and careful saving now requires something closer to luck — timing the market, inheriting money, or simply already being inside when the doors closed.
The standard measure of "housing stress" is spending more than 30% of your income on rent or mortgage. By that measure, almost seven in ten local renters are already under pressure — and that data is from 2021, before the latest round of rent increases.
The chart above tells the before-and-after story. In 2016, the median household renting locally spent around 26% of income on housing. By 2024, that figure had climbed to 34% — crossing the stress threshold for the average renter, not just the struggling ones.
Who's most affected
Single-income households, people over 55 renting privately, and families with children are hit hardest. These aren't marginal cases. They're the teachers, nurses, and café owners who make a community function.
The data doesn't suggest a single policy fix. But it does make clear that this is a community-wide issue, not a personal failing. When the median renter is in housing stress, the problem is structural.