Priced out of rental market, Ontario senior lives in her shed

She can't afford a car, can hardly afford food and is completely priced out of the rental market. Now, a Midland senior has resorted to living in her shed out of desperation.

Debbie Lloyd has spent the past month living in a shed outside her rented Midland home and is locked in a Landlord Tenant Board dispute over mould found in her basement.

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Lloyd said the issue first appeared two years ago, when she was told the issue would be fixed.

In 2023, she began to suffer from respiratory issues and medical challenges, confirmed in medical records obtained by CTV News.

Medical records revealed Lloyd eventually lost hearing in one ear and diagnostics confirmed she suffered from a "mixture of normally nonpathogenic fungi, suggestive of environmental contamination."

It wasn't until a heating repairman came to check on the furnace, that the presence of mould still in the home was confirmed.

"She (the landlord) said she was going to have it fixed, I believed her," Lloyd told CTV News. "But it made perfect sense now why my lungs were so bad, why my sinuses were so bad."

Lloyd had her own air quality assessment taken.

The Town of Midland has also issued a comply order to her landlord based off that same assessment.

Remediation of the basement has been done by the landlord but has not been completed throughout the home.

Her landlord did pay for her to live in a motel for a short time, but that ended, and Lloyd said her only option was to move into her shed.

She currently pays $1,000 a month plus utilities and earns roughly $2,000/month from her pension.

According to Zumper.com's housing report, the average rent in Midland is just over $2,000 a month.

"There's no place else you can afford to live when you're a senior," added a tearful Lloyd.

And Lloyd's not alone in her challenges.

According to the National Institute on Ageing, a public policy institute that aims to improve the lives of older adults, roughly 1.33 million older adults live in poverty in Canada.

"That would make the over-65 population one of the worst-off groups in Canada," said Alyssa Brierley, a lawyer and the institute's executive director. "When you're older with limited financial means, you might have multiple health conditions to manage, you might be facing the loss of your community and social support system. If you have to move out of your neighbourhood or community to find other housing, it can be absolutely catastrophic for older people."

The County of Simcoe considers affordable rent to be 70 to 80 per cent of the local average market rent. Brierley said that fits with the current definition of what affordable housing is across the nation, and that needs to change.

"If that cost has escalated far beyond what's reasonable and you're taking 70 or 80 per cent of that and deeming it to be affordable, that doesn't help somebody whose income hasn't moved," she added.

Brierley said all levels of government must work to create more affordable and adequate housing to address the needs of Canadians, starting with changing the definition of what's considered affordable.

For Lloyd, her landlord and tenant board hearing is scheduled for later this month.