When Applying for Housing Becomes a Barrier: My Experience With BC Housing

 

When Applying for Housing Becomes a Barrier: My Experience With BC Housing

I have been thinking about whether to write this, because even putting these words on the page brings back the anxiety I felt that day.

I recently went to BC Housing because I am trying to find stability and a safe place to live. Housing is not just a form or an application. For someone who has been struggling, it represents security, dignity, and hope.

But instead of feeling supported, I walked into an environment that made me feel overwhelmed and panicked.

The office felt extremely sterile and disconnected. There was a glass panel separating me from the person helping me. I had to stand on my tiptoes to speak through the glass, and because I have difficulty speaking loudly, I felt like I had to push myself just to be heard.

There was no quiet room where I could sit down and explain my situation privately. No place where a person could feel calm while discussing something as personal as housing.

When I was given forms to complete, I wasn’t offered a clipboard or a comfortable place to sit and fill them out. I was told there was a shelf and it was pointed out to me.

Maybe these things seem small to someone working there every day. But when someone is already stressed, scared, or carrying years of uncertainty, small things can become huge barriers.

I had a panic attack.

And now, even though I know I need housing, I feel unable to go back and complete the BC Housing application process.

I have been told the process can take six weeks or more. I understand there are many people needing help and that staff are busy. But I also believe the process itself needs compassion. People seeking housing are not just applications and paperwork. They are human beings who may already be exhausted, frightened, or dealing with trauma.

I am grateful that I am on the list for Soroptimist housing, and I hope that opportunity comes through. But at this point, I do not think I will be applying for BC Housing again.

And that is the part that worries me.

How many people give up—not because they don't need housing, but because the process feels impossible?

Housing systems should not only provide homes. They should create a pathway that people can actually walk through.

A safe home begins with a safe conversation

Reflective Questions: When Seeking Help Becomes a Struggle

1. Have you ever had to prove you were poor enough, sick enough, or desperate enough to deserve help? What does that do to a person’s dignity?

2. Why do we create systems that require people in crisis to be at their strongest, most organized, and most capable just to access basic support?

3. If housing is a human need, why does applying for housing sometimes feel like applying to win a competition?

4. Who designs these systems, and do they ever sit on the other side of the desk and experience what applicants experience?

5. How do we make sure that helping one group of people does not mean another vulnerable group feels forgotten or abandoned?

6. Why do people with disabilities often have to repeatedly prove their struggles to receive support? What does that say about how we value people?

7. Should access to a safe home depend on someone’s ability to complete complicated forms, wait on long lists, and navigate confusing rules?

8. What would our housing system look like if it was designed by people who have experienced homelessness, disability, poverty, and housing insecurity?

9. Why do we accept a system where many people who work, contribute, and have lived in their communities for years still cannot afford a safe home?

10. When we say we are building compassionate communities, are our systems actually reflecting compassion—or only the idea of compassion?

Questions for BC Housing:

Have the people designing these application processes ever experienced the fear and stress of needing housing themselves?

Have you ever had to prove you were poor enough to deserve help?

Have you ever sat behind a glass barrier, trying to explain your life while feeling anxious, unheard, and overwhelmed?

What support exists for people who cannot navigate the application process because of trauma, disability, language barriers, age, or stress?

How many people give up before completing the process—not because they don't need housing, but because the system is too difficult to access?

How do you measure dignity in a housing system?

Are we building systems around human beings, or asking human beings to adapt to systems?

#HousingJustice

#HumanDignity

#AffordableHousing

#EveryoneNeedsAHome

#DisabilityRights

#ListenToLivedExperience

#CompassionInAction

#FixTheSystem

#CommunityVoices

#HousingCrisis

#DignityForAll

#PeopleBeforePaperwork