Seventy-seven-year-old Keith Light is back at home in a recreational vehicle outside a Walmart in East Vancouver, having recently been discharged from hospital after an accident.
He’s glad to be out of the “crazy” emergency room at Vancouver General Hospital where he spent a night earlier this month. But what he really dreams of is a call from BC Housing.
Light spent New Year’s Eve trying to run the engine of his RV – covered with snow from a blast of winter weather – to stay warm while trying to imagine better times ahead.
“I just laid there and visualized BC Housing calling me and saying, ‘We have a place for you,’” said Light, a former construction worker.
The Canadian Press interviewed Light a year ago when his RV was parked outside the Canadian Tire store a couple of blocks away. But not much has changed since.
He’s been on BC Housing’s waiting list for subsidized housing for two years now. Every time he contacts the agency, staff ask him to check back in another six months, he said.
2:11 Social housing waitlists grow in B.C.
Light is among a large population of elderly people living in poverty or on the brink in British Columbia, where perennially high housing costs exacerbate countrywide cost-of-living woes.
Government statistics show people 65 or older in B.C. are twice as likely as younger adults to be classified as having low incomes in 2021. But it wasn’t always like this. Twenty years earlier, it was the other way around.
Low-income rates among B.C. seniors have almost doubled since 2001, and are almost seven times higher than in 1996, according to government statistics.
Light once had a home on Pender Island, a 40-minute ferry ride from Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island, but he sold it and relocated to Metro Vancouver.
After paying off debts he didn’t have much left so he bought the RV for $19,000 while living on a monthly pension of $1,900.
Adding to his financial woes are parking tickets, each costing $70. Light said he managed to pay some of them, and he’s now saving up to pay the rest.
Light said four months ago, trailers full of drug dealers moved into his area, and police busted them and towed their vehicles away. The city later put up signs banning parking between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Light said he chose the spot because it had free public Wi-Fi from the Walmart and he was upset about the new parking rules.
“With all the people in tents and camps and no affordable housing around, the city should totally be accepting of those who have taken the initiative to look after their housing needs by getting a camper or RV,” he said.
“We take some pressure off the city, and yet they don’t stop their bylaw officers giving us tickets.”
1:05 New seniors advocate named to replace Isobel Mackenzie
Advocates for B.C. seniors say rising costs of living coupled with stagnant government retirement incomes are pushing more people into poverty and homelessness.
The monthly old age pension for people over 75 is up to $784.67, while the guaranteed income supplement for a single person is up to $1,065.47, for a total of $22,201.68 a year.
A 66-page report, titled Aging in Uncertainty: The Growing Housing Crisis for BC Seniors was published in late November by United Way British Columbia.
It cited Statistics Canada data showing that more than one in six B.C. seniors in 2021 had after-tax low incomes, defined as 50 per cent or less than the median adjusted after‑tax income of private households.
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That was a “dramatic reversal” from three decades ago when seniors had the lowest low-income rates of any age group, United Way said.
The report says that in 2001, only 8.6 per cent of people aged 65 or over in B.C. were in the low-income category, compared with 16 per cent of younger adults. But by 2021, the situation had reversed — 15.2 per cent of seniors were in the low-income group, compared with 8.1 per cent of younger adults.
In 1996, only 2.2 per cent of seniors were in the low-income group.
The United Way report also said one in four seniors in B.C. had an after-tax income below $21,800 in 2020.
Carole Fawcett, a 75-year-old retired counsellor and freelance writer from Vernon, B.C., is among those on the low-income threshold.
She has a $1,800 monthly income from old-age security and the Canada Pension Plan.
She also has lymphocytic leukemia, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Fawcett said it was “bizarre” that she receives a lower income than someone working 40 hours a week on minimum wage.
She said she would still be working if her energy allowed, but her illness leaves her fatigued. She needs extra oxygen while she sleeps and relies on an oxygen tank when she walks her poodle-mix, Finnegan.
Her low income rules out things like restaurant dining and the freedom to buy what she wants at the grocery store.
“I do have friends and we go out for coffee or a muffin somewhere, depending on whether we pick places that are not too exorbitant,” she said. “I just don’t do a whole lot because I do have a limited pension.”
She doesn’t even bake as much as she used to because of the rising cost of ingredients and sometimes she has to dip into savings which she says are “getting smaller by the minute.”
“It’s absolutely disrespectful how seniors are treated by the government in that we don’t really have enough to live with any dignity or respect,” said Fawcett.
4:37 Report highlights lack of retirement readiness
Laura Kadowaki, program and operations coordinator with United Way BC, said the group’s study was inspired by dozens of front-line service providers who described seniors in dire situations.
“One of the troubling things about the situation is that in the past, we actually saw that the income benefits often did a pretty good job of keeping seniors out of the low-income situation, keeping them housed, and meeting their needs,” said Kadowaki.
But in recent years, there has been a “very significant shift,” with income benefits failing to keep pace with the needs of older people.
Seniors interviewed for the report described living unsheltered or in unsafe housing situations: for example, staying with abusive family members, living in cars or storage lockers, camping in the woods and living without heat or electricity.
Kadowaki said one front-line agency worker told her about half of her clients are so distressed they say they aren’t sure if they want to live.
“That was something that really impacted me and it’s something that you never want to hear … (it) illustrates the impact that this crisis has on older adults across B.C.,” said Kadowaki.
Vancouver resident Sharon Elliott, 75, worked as a server until last October, when she had spinal surgery that prevented her from going back.
She gets a pension of about $1,770 per month, but after expenses for physiotherapy, rent and medicine “there was nothing left for food.”
She said the pension isn’t an income to “live on,” but to “die on.”
Elliott started an advocacy group for seniors called the Tin Cup Movement and held a rally outside Vancouver City Hall in September, calling for seniors to receive a “livable income” that reflects the cost of living.
The group’s name came from an encounter with another senior Elliott said she saw collecting cans out of the garbage.
“I said, ‘Excuse me, are you a senior living on a guaranteed income supplement?’ She said, yes and I sat down with her and spoke with her,” said Elliott.
Elliott said they clicked, both had worked for employers for more than 25 years but received no pension.
“It could have been me,” said Elliott.
1:48 White Rock tenants living without heat
Back outside Walmart, Light said he was thinking of borrowing some money from his sister to buy a camper, downsizing from his RV.
The smaller vehicle would make it easier to get around and avoid parking tickets, he hoped.
He said he was planning to go back to work, and planned to print out business cards advertising his services as a handyman and repairman to drop in mailboxes.
Light said he considered himself lucky since he still had a roof over his head, and he sympathized with the “hundreds and hundreds” of people who had been waiting for proper housing longer than him.
“You’ve just got to have faith and hold on and … just keep going,” he said.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
