Non-profit thrift stores in Metro Vancouver struggle as rents soar
Not-for-profit stores say they play a big role in supporting community efforts
The operators of non-profit thrift stores in Metro Vancouver say the region's expensive real estate market is making it difficult for them to make money, and that's keeping them from being able to help their communities.
Burnaby Association for South East Side (BASES) Family Thrift Store in Burnaby, B.C., says it will soon have to close because of increasingly unaffordable rent.
"We know we can run a successful business. We've done it for 12 years and we certainly can continue that," said BASES president Peggy Woodruff.
"But we just can't afford the rent."
Woodruff says her thrift store has raised more than $1 million for children and families in her community. But after all these years, she's getting ready to close the store's doors.
Rent for the store started at $10 a square foot when it first opened more than a decade ago, she says. It's now being raised to $40 a square foot.
Woodruff says for the last 18 months her organization has tried looking for another space to operate its business. But so far, the search has not been successful.
"We've looked at over probably 80 properties in Burnaby," she said. "The retail space is very, very tight."
'The profit is completely gone'
In Surrey, SEVA Thrift Foundation board member Raj Arneja says the SEVA Thrift Store donated more than $100,000 to the community in its first seven years of operation. But the store's rent has nearly tripled since it first opened, and it hasn't had any extra money to hand out in the last two years.
"The profit is completely gone," Arneja said.
To help, the store became a non-profit-organization and last year it was granted charity status. Arneja says she hopes that can help them access grants.
She says business has been picking up, and she's hopeful for the future. She says the store doesn't just give money, it also offers a valuable space for its 60 or so volunteers to gain work experience and build community.
"It's like a nice stepping stone, volunteering with us — a stepping stone into any kind of career," Arneja said.
Rent control vs. creating more supply
Last year a city councillor in New Westminster proposed special economic zones to help small businesses amid rapid development, increasing land values and rising commercial rents.
But Andrey Pavlov, a finance professor at Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business, says commercial rent control is not a solution — the focus should be increasing the real estate supply.
"We need to make it easy and fast and safe to invest in commercial, residential real estate so that people do that in large numbers," Pavlov said.
"And then we build a lot more than we currently have."
Pavlov says there has been a chronic shortage of commercial real estate, just like the residential market.
With files from Sohrab Sandhu