Home is where the rent's high

One in every five renter households in Canada spends at least 50 per cent of its income on rent, study shows

By: Margaret Dinsdale

  June 9/00 - It's not only the homeless who are dying because of Canada's affordable housing crisis. Joe Mihevc, a City Councillor, remembers the meeting he recently attended regarding the demolition of 310 and 320 Tweedsmuir Avenue, in his constituency. These addresses represented 240 rental apartments. The Ontario Municipal Board, granted the demolitions, as well as building permits for a new complex of 240 condominium units, 13 townhouses and 146 rental apartments. The current tenants were offered relocation packages for the two years of construction but, obviously, they couldn't all move back in. And with the current situation in Toronto of a near-zero vacancy rate, and rents on vacant units rising an average of 10 per cent - and in some cases 40 per cent to 50 per cent - the stress proved too much for one person.
  "There was a 75-year-old woman who had lived there for years," Mihevc explains. "She came to the meeting looking really stressed and said that she just couldn't take it any more. Two days later, she died of a heart attack."
 

"Homelessness is now at 32,000 in Toronto, with 2,000 more per year projected for the next two years," says Toronto Councillor Joe Mihevc

  The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been tracking the housing crisis. According to its figures, one in every five renter households in Canada spent 50 per cent or more of its income on housing in 1996, an increase of 43 per cent since 1991. In the early 1990s, this percentage could be blamed on declining household income, but the Federation says the inadequate supply of low and moderate housing has driven up the rents in the last six years.
  The Federation's research also shows who is most in need: families with children, senior citizens and aboriginals. Some of its recommendations include locally designed and administered initiatives, supported by all levels of government; encouragement of private rental units; and income supplement programs for those struggling to pay market rents.
  "Homelessness is now at 32,000 in Toronto, with 2,000 more per year projected for the next two years," Mihevc says. He adds that many people who aren't homeless are inadequately housed. He knows of many people who share a one-bedroom apartment and use plastic sheeting to create a second bedroom on the balcony. He also points to the rise in working, housed people using food banks because they cannot afford groceries after they pay the rent.
 

"It drives me crazy that landlords can give a lower level of service and still raise rents," says Roy Cunningham, president of the High Park Tenants' Association

  "The Tenant Protection Act, which passed in June 1998, removed rent controls and rents have gone up," he says. "The removal of rent controls was supposed to stimulate private rental construction but instead we're getting more condominium construction."
  Even those who can afford higher rents are unhappy with the Tenant Protection Act. Roy Cunningham, president of the High Park Tenants' Association in Toronto which represents 2,700 rental units, says the Act allows owners to raise rents even when there are standing work orders against the property. Cunningham pays almost $1,200 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in a highrise with parking.
  "I don't mind paying more to get a nice, quiet building with well-kept grounds," he says. "However, in my building a couple of months ago, the top floors were without water for days on end - in some cases 15 days out of one month."
  The problem, he says, was a poorly maintained and aging plumbing system that resulted in burst pipes and a water-pressure pump failing.
 

Rent increases averaged two per cent a year before the Ontario government passed the Tenant Protection Act in 1998, but they skyrocketed to seven per cent by the end of 1998

  "They offered $40 compensation for the inconvenience," Cunningham says. "At the same time, they have given us ten days notice that they want to raise the rents more than the 2.6 per cent allowed." The owners, Minto Development Inc., gave tenants a 500-page legal justification for the extra 4 per cent they want to charge - and just ten days to understand it and prepare a defense. "It drives me crazy that landlords can give a lower level of service and still raise rents," Cunningham says.
  Rent increases averaged two per cent a year before the Ontario government passed the Tenant Protection Act in 1998, but they skyrocketed to seven per cent by the end of 1998.
  Though the increases dropped back down to five per cent the following year, David DeLuca, a resource officer with Toronto's Shelter, Housing and Support Division, says tenants should expect higher increases again this fall. That's because landlords under the present Ontario legislation have more freedom to raise rents above legal guidelines, DeLuca says. They can claim expenses for items like repairs, security systems, property taxes and utility bills for as far back as 1996. That huge backlog of claims is just starting to have an impact.

Get More/Do More
Check out the Citizens on the Web's discussion of the housing crisis at www.interlog.com/~cjazz/action.htm - click on housing.

Housing Again, a site dedicated to putting affordable housing back on the public agenda - www.housingagain.web.net.

Read Bob Levitt's "Tenants' 21 Most Asked Questions and Their Answers" at www.geocities.com/torontotenants/reports/tenqa3c.html.

Explore the Canadian Co-Housing Network's alternatives to renting at www.cohousing.ca.

Check out the Intentional Communities' take on desirable living arrangements at www.ic.org.

Find more tenant information in the Canadian Lawyer Index at www.canlaw.com/tenants/tenants.htm.

[ Front Page ]