New BrunswickSome people very familiar with New Brunswick’s housing shortage say rooming houses could be part of the solution, but the existing supply of this once popular low-cost housing option continues to dwindle.Rooming houses among many options ‘up for discussion’ to address housing crunch, says provinceJennifer Sweet · CBC News · Posted: Oct 04, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: October 4The former Sunset Hotel, which has been a rooming house for more than 30 years, will be torn down, says New Brunswick Housing. A building with 31 single public housing units will replace it. (Vanessa Blanch/CBC)Some people very familiar with New Brunswick’s housing shortage say rooming houses could be part of the solution, but the existing supply of this once popular low-cost housing option continues to dwindle.Among the next to meet the wrecking ball will be the former Sunset Hotel in Moncton, confirmed a spokesperson for New Brunswick Housing, which owns it.The building at 162 Queen St., which is across from the First Baptist Church, will be demolished this fall, Adam Bowie said in an emailed reply to CBC News.”Since the building is over 100 years old, and continues to deteriorate in significant ways, tenants had been dealing with a number of safety and security-related concerns — such as the presence of non-resident squatters and a lack of hot water at times,” Bowie wrote.”A section of the building also had to be closed for safety reasons.”Rooming houses affordable option for single peopleThat’s a common issue with rooming houses, these days, said Julia Woodhall-Melnik, an associate professor of social sciences at the University of New Brunswick’s Saint John campus and Canada Research Chair in resilient communities.But they used to be a very popular option for single working people, she said, especially in the Second World War era. Housing researcher Julia Woodhall-Melnik says rooming houses are a good option for many people who need an affordable place to live. (Submitted by Julia Woodhall-Melnik)Rooming houses are sometimes called co-housing, congregate living or SROs, short for single-room occupancies, said Woodhall-Melnike, but basically a rooming house means a place where three or more people who are unrelated live together, sharing common rooms, such as kitchens and bathrooms, but each having their own private living space.Bowie didn’t disclose how many tenants the Sunset Hotel had, but they were given 90 days’ notice and support to find other lodging.”The four people who had still been living there until recently were offered help with moving, and eligible individuals were offered alternate living arrangements,” he said. “All have now moved out.”One former tenant, Robert MacKay, told Moncton council on Sept. 15 that he and other residents had been asked to move out by Sept. 30.MacKay described the Sunset Hotel as a “venerable institution” and a “colourful place” with affordable rents.Robert MacKay, who has lived at the Sunset Rooming House for years, has said the building was one of the last affordable options for people in downtown Moncton. (CBC News)Rooming house rent is generally less expensive than for an apartment, said Woodhall-Melnik, ranging from $500 to $800 in Saint John, for example. And the vacancy rate for rooms is a bit higher than it is for apartments, she said, meaning there’s a better chance of finding one available.Rooming houses could help with housing crisisAfter remediation of the Sunset Hotel site, the plan is to construct a new building there that has 31 affordable units, 11 of which would be “more accessible and barrier free,” Bowie said.He didn’t say whether the new building would be in the form of a rooming house.But that’s one of many types of housing up for discussion to address the housing crunch, he said.Taken in 2019, this photo shows the Sunset Hotel’s second floor, which rooming house tenants had access to, along with a shared bathroom and kitchenette. (Vanessa Blanch/CBC)Woodhall-Melnik sees a case for rooming houses. A lot of research has been done on the subject, she said, citing some of her own from the 2010s.In one case study, a person who was in a housing-first program was really struggling medically, she said. A succession of “terrible things” had happened to him while he was living alone, and he required expensive care.Then he moved in with some other people and began to thrive, Woodhall-Melnik said.Reflecting later on, the man revealed that the quiet and solitude of an apartment was very foreign to him, and “he needed the noise of having other people around.”It has to be the right mix of people, though, she said.”You have to deal with personalities, habits, chores, all of that kind of stuff. Division of labour in the house, and all of that stuff needs to be negotiated, which can be quite tricky.”The other main downfall tends to be larger home-maintenance problems.Rooming houses are often in older houses that need structural repairs, she said.The Sunset Hotel is one of several in the province known to have shut down in recent years.It’s not clear how many rooming houses or units in them currently exist in the province. N.B. Housing does not have this data, said Bowie, since many are privately owned and operated. All rooming houses are not created equal: Meet the people who call ‘Sunset’ home A rooming-house super’s hard-earned wisdom about homelessness That kind of information would be available if the province had a rental registry, said Harper Trottier, whose group ACORN N.B. would like to see a registry created.Some non-profit groups in the province are using rooming houses in housing first programs, said Woodhall-Melnik.There’s one in Saint John, for example, that is specifically for youth. They’re also fairly common living arrangements for students, she said.New project in Saint John offers rooms with supportThe courtyard housing run by 12 Neighbours runs in Saint John is like an SRO, said Marcel LeBrun.He agrees this type of housing can help fill the affordable housing gap. Marcel LeBrun, founder of the 12 Neighbours tiny-home community in Fredericton, says SRO housing can help fill a gap. (Jeanne Armstrong/CBC)In LeBrun’s view, depending on who the building caters to, it would probably need supports to help tenants deal with things like housekeeping, getting along with their neighbours and protecting their space from being taken over by someone else. Saint John set to open homes for people who’ve been living in encampment 12 Neighbours founder wants to build ‘rapidly deployable’ transitional housing The new site in Saint John has been operating for a couple of months without a single call to emergency services, he said, in contrast to a container village that operated in the city last year that had fewer supports and more problems.”If you have the support there, it’s like a force of order … a little bit beyond what the landlord typically does.”ABOUT THE AUTHORJennifer Sweet has been telling the stories of New Brunswickers for over 20 years. She is originally from Bathurst, got her journalism degree from Carleton University and is based in Fredericton. She can be reached at 451-4176 or jennifer.sweet@cbc.ca.
Moncton rooming house slated for demolition as demand for affordable rent grows
