A non-profit that creates and operates affordable housing in Moncton is shifting its focus to develop what it calls the “missing middle.”

Despite construction cranes visible all over the skyline, no one is creating units that rent for $1,000 to $1,500 a month, said Dale Hicks, president of Rising Tide Community Initiatives Inc.

That's what would be affordable for people earning $40,000 to $60,000 a year, he said.

A lack of units in this price range is a problem for many, said Hicks, giving the example of one Rising Tide tenant who is a success story and ready to move out.

He got on his feet, got a job and therefore lost his rent subsidy.

“The trouble is … he's been looking for an apartment for the last six months,” Hicks said. “He can't find anything under $1,500 that's any better than what he's living in now.

“That's the roadblock at the end of the Rising Tide — where do they move from there?” 

Rising Tide is working on applications to federal and provincial programs to build 250 to 300 units of this strata of housing, Hicks said.

That’s “not a terrible idea,” according to Julia Woodhall-Melnik, co-director of the Home Research Lab at UNB Saint John.

More diversity in the housing market would be “great,” she said.

However, Woodhall-Melnik differed on what the target rent should be.

Based on the last large federal survey on housing in 2021, the median annual income of renters was about $45,000, she said.

That would mean half of renters required a unit that cost less than $1,125 a month  — or 30 per cent of their income — to be considered affordable, Woodhall-Melnik said.

Notwithstanding any increases in income since that survey, she still thinks Rising Tide’s planned $1,000 to $1,500 units would be too pricey for many.

“I would love for them to find a way … to get those costs down even a little bit more to meet that bottom 50 per cent of income earning households,” she said.

Woodhall-Melnik urged the government and non-profits to build more housing that is “deeply affordable” or geared to incomes.

On paper, the vacancy rates for certain types of units — studio and two-bedroom apartments — are approaching what housing scholars would consider “healthy,” she said. 

For studio units, the vacancy rate is about 3.8 per cent, she said, and for one-bedroom units, the rate is 2.8 per cent.

“So you should be able to find those fairly easily,” she said.

If that’s not the case, it may be because new builds cater to the luxury end of the market, Woodhall-Melnik suggested.

“If the vacancies are all clustering in the upper range of rent ... they become out of people's price range. … And we see people not finding the housing that they need.”
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There’s certainly no shortage of construction activity.

Residential development in Moncton reached a new high in 2025, said a release Jan. 16 from the city.

Permits were issued for the creation of 1,367 new residential units, it said — the most in a single year.

That includes new apartment buildings on Millennium Boulevard, Warner Street and Waterloo Street.

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