N.S. woman spends most of her income on rent, says its impossible to get help [Video]

A woman living in the Halifax area is expressing her frustration surrounding Nova Scotia’s rental supplement program as she was denied assistance despite spending more than half her monthly income on housing.

Sylvia Cole, who rents an apartment in the Dartmouth area, said she spent seven months scouring the city’s rental market before finding an affordable option that worked for her. Amid the process, she said she contacted several affordable housing assistance groups that denied her applications due to already extensive wait-lists.

“I took this apartment because I felt confident that because of my income and rent, that I’d qualify for the rental subsidy which I applied for,” she said during an interview with Global News on Tuesday.

After a lengthy waiting period, Cole said she received a response from the provincial government. But its assessment wasn’t what she had anticipated.

“Two months later, I got a letter telling me that I …