PETERBOROUGH, ON [November 18, 2025] – This morning from the Boardroom of the United Way offices at 277 Stewart Street, the 20th edition of Housing is Fundamental was released. This annual report to the community has tracked the cost and availability of rental housing in Peterborough from 2004-2024, offering a clear picture of local affordability trends. The research also works to contextualize the pressures households face in maintaining safe and affordable housing.
Opening the meeting, United Way Peterborough & District CEO Jim Russell remarked, “we need to see housing as a human right. We need to understand that success in life requires safe affordable housing. We need to be ever vigilant to the creeping presence of a predatory capitalism.”
Joining Russell was originator, researcher, and author of Housing is Fundamental, Paul Armstrong, who presented key findings from the report. Reflecting on two decades of work, Armstrong noted, “we are living the effects of the globalization of inequality and the proliferation of economic hardship. To know and witness this progression is to call for justice and rebalancing.”
Key findings include:
- Current vacancy rate: 3.1%
- Current two-bedroom rent: $1,506/month, a 6.7% increase over last year
- 20% of purpose-built rental units are owned by financial firms – approximately 400,000 units nationally
- Over a 20-year period rent for a two-bedroom unit has gone up 88.95%
- The current welfare rate for a single person is $733/month, while the average bachelor apartment rents for $956/month
Reacting to this year’s findings was Dr. Naomi Nichols, Director of Research for the Social Change Lab Trent University, and Cananda Research Chair in Community Partnered Social Justice, who stated, “This year’s Housing is Fundamental report demonstrates the deep need for non-profit and public investments in affordable rental housing to lessen the financial pressures facing individuals and families in our community. Peterborough residents are being squeezed. Despite a softening of local vacancy rates since 2022, average market rents and the cost of food continue to rise faster than household incomes. I am grateful to Paul Armstrong and the United Way for their work to make local data accessible and actionable for decision-makers in our community, in the province, and federally. This is the time for clear-headed, evidence-led actions to address precarity, locally and across our country.”
The full report can be found online: https://www.uwpeterborough.ca/reports/
For media inquiries, please contact:
Jim Russell, CEO
United Way Peterborough & District
705-742-8839 ext. 26
