Tenant City

T.O. Apartment standards violations online

2006-09-18T16:37:00.000-04:00

Considering moving to a new building? Curious about how many apartment standards violations have been reported for a given address in Toronto? Want to know if your fellow tenants have complained to the City about maintenance problems?

This online tool that reports every Order to Comply issued by the City's Apartment Stadards folks, as well as details and status of the order for those issued after July 31, 2005.

Information about such orders is only kept online for 2 years, and once an order has been complied with, detailed information about the complaint is no longer available to the public.

The database shows three citations for my building, but since they were issued prior to July 31, all I can tell is that they are "closed".

Hot weather a serious risk for tenants

2006-06-23T11:06:00.000-04:00

From mid-April through to mid-September, the entirely window-covered east-facing wall of my apartment transforms the place into an intolerably hot greenhouse. Thank heaven for my tiny window air conditioner! If you're stuck without one, Toronto Public Health has several good resources for landlords (and concerned or at-risk tenants) on the subject of hot weather:

High temperatures combined with high humidity can be very dangerous for vulnerable people, including the very young, the elderly, those with chronic illnesses or those on medications that make them more sensitive to heat. Vulnerable individuals who live in buildings without adequate cooling are especially at risk... [more]

See the following links for more information:

Summer Safety Tips to Beat The Heat

Landlord Heat Safety Notice [PDF]

3 Simple Steps for Implementing a Hot Weather Protection Plan [PDF]

Beat The Heat Slideshow [PDF]

Has your building gone smoke-free?

2006-05-14T13:32:00.000-04:00

Get a whiff of this!, Hamilton Spectator, 13 May 2006

[D]ozens of agencies are gearing up to support tenants and condo owners in their fight to declare their buildings smoke-free, including the Ontario Tobacco-Free Network, Clean Air Coalition of B.C., Non-Smokers' Rights Association, Canadian Cancer Society - and Health Canada, which notes succinctly: "There is only one way to eliminate ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke); remove the source."

Indeed, smoke drifts through the ventilation systems, electrical outlets, cable and phone jacks, and ceiling fixtures - not to mention through cracks and gaps around sinks, plumbing, windows, doors, floors, walls and ceilings, says the Council for a Tobacco-Free Toronto (CTFT), which notes landlords are obliged to seal units and clean the air as much as possible.

Still, the fact that it takes three hours to remove 95 per cent of the smoke from a single cigarette, gives an idea of the challenge...

No end to vacancy decontrol in new bill

2006-04-29T22:28:00.000-04:00

Province's new rent bill finally ready, Toronto Star, 29 April 2006

The legislation, to be introduced by Municipal Affairs Minister John Gerretsen, is meant to fulfil a Liberal election promise to restore "real protection" for tenants.

But the legislation may not go far enough to satisfy tenant advocates, while going too far for landlords.

Specifically, sources say the legislation will keep "vacancy decontrol," the policy introduced by the previous Conservative government to allow landlords to jack up rents on vacant apartments to whatever level the market will bear.

On the other hand, the legislation reportedly restores many of the tenant-friendly provisions from the NDP government's Rent Control Act that were repealed by the Conservatives.

Additional press: Globe and Mail.

Reaction to T.O. homeless survey

2006-04-23T18:10:00.000-04:00

We need a national housing strategy, not a head count, Toronto Star, 23 April 2006

Determining whether 200, 500 or 1,000 people happen to be sleeping outside on April 19 shouldn't radically change the response — 31,985 homeless people are too many...

Increasing social assistance rates and minimum wage to liveable levels, new social housing and rent supplements will all help the city address its homeless disaster.

Spending money and wasting time on another study will only detract from the main issue: We are the only industrialized country in the world without a national housing program.

Additional press: Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, City of Toronto.

Ready for the hydro hike?

2006-04-14T16:25:00.000-04:00

Low-income families face biggest pinch, Ottawa Sund, 13 April 2006

Ottawa Hydro says the average family uses 750 kilowatt hours of power per month at an average cost of $76. That will jump to about $85.

Dana Silk, general manager of the EnviroCentre, a non-profit organization that helps people reduce energy costs, said low-income families are at risk because they generally use electric heating devices that consume a lot of juice...

"In the short term, it's a problem for landlords," said John Dickie, chairman of the Eastern Ontario Landlord Organization.

"In the long term, it's a problem for tenants."

Additional press: Toronto Star, Globe and Mail.

In lieu of more serious series

2006-04-07T08:27:00.000-04:00

CMHC's Time Series Data page lets you browse mountains of housing market datasets, but unfortunately they aren't available for free.

The annual Rental Market Reports, however, which are free, do contain a great deal of useful data broken down by region and census metropolitan area.

The following figures illustrate some basic data drawn from the 2004 and 2005 reports:

Rent banks get boost

2006-04-05T16:38:00.000-04:00

McGuinty Government Helps Low-Income Tenants, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, 03 April 2006

The government is investing an additional $4 million in the Provincial Rent Bank program to promote housing stability by helping low-income tenants to avoid eviction for non-payment of rent due to an unforeseen crisis. Tenants with lower incomes may apply to their local rent bank to receive financial assistance to address short-term rent arrears. If a tenant's application is approved, the outstanding rent is paid directly to the landlord on behalf of the tenant.

While most regions have at least one rent bank (Toronto has several), York Region does not.

Additional press: KW Record.

Of condos and landlords

2006-03-28T16:38:00.000-05:00

Landlords ride out housing boom, National Post, 27 March 2006

The condo boom has created renewed competition for the apartment industry because many condo owners -- as much as 50% in downtown Toronto -- are renting out their property and competing with traditional landlords.

Activist-turned-developer pushes for better low-end housing

2006-03-19T00:49:00.000-05:00

Building a caring approach: Former tenant advocate brings compassion to his projects, Toronto Star, 18 March 2006

While it may be ironic that Cohen today finds himself sitting at the helm of the Daniels Corp., one of Canada's largest development firms, the Saskatchewan native still tries to put his progressive mark on many of his projects.

"We build homes, and our success has given us both the opportunity and responsibility to do everything we can to assist the thousands upon thousands of people who can't put a meal on the table for their family, let alone buy a new home," he says.

Cohen has overseen the development of about 16,000 homes around the GTA. The firm was honoured by the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association as its first Home Builder of the Year, and has also been a repeat winner of Tarion's prestigious Service Excellence Award...

But the projects that get Cohen really excited are the ones at the lower end of the affordability scale. Daniels is responsible for building 3,600 rental housing units, more than 700 rent-to-own units, and 716 affordable properties aimed at first-time buyers...

Just last week, Daniels launched its latest affordable housing project: Wave Lakeshore West. The 13-storey condo — comprising studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units — is being built near Lake Shore Blvd. W. and Kipling Ave. in Etobicoke.

Daniels got both the federal and provincial governments on board with the project, which is targeted to tenants who are having trouble cobbling together a down payment. With both Daniels and the two levels of government helping out with the down payment, the company says it's possible for a couple earning minimum wage to afford one of the units.

Additional press: National Post.

Have your say on the TPA at city hall

2006-03-06T13:20:00.000-05:00

Public forum on tenant protection, City of Toronto: Shelter, Support and Housing Administration

In their 2003 election platform, the Ontario Liberals pledged to "repeal the misnamed Tenant Protection Act and replace it with an effective tenant protection law in our first year of government."

It's now 2006, and the law has not yet been changed.

The City of Toronto wants you to join us in sending a message to our provincial representatives.

The current Tenant Protection Act must be changed.
Ontarians have a right to live in good affordable housing.
Save the existing supply of affordable housing.

Have your say at this public forum – everyone's invited!

Tenant tax rate 174% higher than homeowners'

2006-03-03T19:08:00.000-05:00

Apartment renters looking for help with tax fairness campaign, Dundas Star News, 03 Mar 2006

A group of apartment tenants is tired of paying unfairly inflated tax rates, and is looking for support from apartment renters across Hamilton to help close the gap between residential and multi-residential taxpayers...

Their municipal tax rate is currently 2.74 times that of residential taxpayers [in Hamilton]. Eighteen per cent of their monthly rent goes directly to municipal taxes.

Municipal staffers reply that while tenants pay a higher rate relative to property value, the vastly higher average value of homes means homeowners pay more in absolute terms.

A better measure of fairness is ability to pay, or the ratio of property tax assesment to income (which is more difficult to determine, and so infrequently enters the debate).

The real problem is that many tenants are unaware that they pay property tax through rent, and municipal political discourse is often suffused with the notion that only homeowners deserve to have a say in a city's affairs.

Tenant blog + alleged libel = eviction?

2006-03-02T19:43:00.000-05:00

Blog comments net Kingston woman an eviction notice, CBC News, 02 Mar 2006

Two weeks ago, Sarah Dawe received a notice from Homestead Land Holdings Ltd., the company that owns the apartment building, accusing her of libel and asking her to vacate the building because of her online comments...

She first launched a website, and later a personal blog, after becoming frustrated with the company's response to her complaints. The website has since been removed by the service provider. Dawe claims it was because of intervention by the landlord.

Dawe has continued to chronicle her fight with Homestead on her blog, which is still up and running.

Having read her blog and some of the news coverage surrounding this story, it seems the crux of the matter is that the landlord is proceeding with an eviction on the basis of the claim that her on-line comments constitute harassment of their staff.

Given the extensive use of exclamation marks and over-the-top rhetoric on her blog (which also includes potentially libellous accusations about vets who have cared for her pet cats), I have some sympathy for such an interpretation; however, in between the all-caps outbursts and the fanciful suggestion of a conspiracy between the landlord (founded by a "KINGSTON LAWYER" and run by his "KINGSTON LAWYER" son), her MP (Peter Milliken), her MPP (John Gerretsen, coincidentally also Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing), and other "KINGSTON LAWYERS", the blog does also document a decade-long history of maintainence and health concerns over which the tenant has (unsucessfully) taken the landlord to the ORHT.

While the media is covering this as an interesting case raising questions about libel and the internet, a more pertinent question is whether a tenant's decision to publish a record of her landlord issues - including the text of findings in the landlord's favour at the Tribunal - is sufficient grounds for eviction. They're not suing her for libel, after all, but rather attempting to use the alleged libel as a reason to evict her for harassment.

Update: She won!

Additional press: Kingston Whig Standard, London Free Press.

Scam could leave victims homeless

2006-03-01T18:32:00.000-05:00

Toronto Apartment Fraudulently Rented to Several Tenants, AM640 Toronto, 01 Mar 2006

It's going to be a brutal day at 26 Uxbridge, in the Davenport and Caledonia area.

Police are expecting a number of people to show up there to take over an apartment which has apparently been rented to all of them. They say it looks like a scheme to grab rent and security deposits from several potential tenants, and the suspect in the case is believed to be long gone with the money...

ACTO: ORHT unable to provide fair, impartial hearings

2006-03-01T18:17:00.000-05:00

Tenant group alleges bias, Toronto Star, 01 Mar 2006

Cara Reid was late paying July rent for the apartment she shares with her two young children. On Aug. 4, Reid's landlord applied to evict the single mother.

Reid didn't challenge the application within the required five days and was sent an eviction order Aug. 10. Then one month later, Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal adjudicator Paul DeBuono overturned the order.

DeBuono said the five-day requirement in the Tenant Protection Act "results in constructive discrimination." It discriminates against single parents, seniors, the disabled and recent immigrants, he wrote.

Units per capita steady since mid-1970s

2006-03-01T08:30:00.000-05:00

The following figures illustrate how the quantity of rental housing units and the population of Ontario have evolved, relative to one another, since 1950.

In a nutshell, the number of rental housing units per Ontarian rose by some 50% between the 1950s and 1970s - a result of the 1960s building boom discussed in an earlier post - but has barely budged since:

For redundancy's sake, here are the same statistics represented the other way 'round (pesons per unit, rather than units per person):

Source: CANSIM II Series V12 (using Q4 data for each year), V227532.

'Smart metering' for apartments?

2006-02-28T17:29:00.000-05:00

McGuinty Government Takes Good First Step with Smart Meter Initiative, CNW Press Release, 28 Feb 2006

Bill 21 allows the Minister of Energy to make smart metering mandatory for condominium units, but ignores rental apartments. Had the government included the metering of rental apartments, overall provincial electricity demand could be reduced by as much as 530 MW or enough energy to power over 331,000 homes. Toronto alone could have reduced demand by 210 MW or power for 125,000 homes...

Currently in Ontario, apartment and condominium buildings are the only areas where there is virtually no relationship between energy consumption and cost. Some 90% of apartment and condominium buildings (1.8 million suites) use a bulk meter for electricity consumption.

The building owner pays the bulk power bill and the cost is equally distributed to residents as part of their monthly rent or common area expense. Residents have no information about their energy usage and therefore no incentive to conserve. In effect, a minority of high energy users in apartments and condominiums have their electricity subsidized by a majority of users.

Stratacon, which issued the above release, would have made a lot of money if the 'smart' electricity meters they sell had been made mandatory. But how would tenants fare?

Conservation advocates such as Energy Probe - along with economists and salesmen - point out that unless tenants are aware of (and forced to pay for) their energy consumption, they lack the information and motivation necessary to make power-saving moves like switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs. They've got a point there, but consumption information and price-signal motivation won't solve the whole problem.

Most energy used in rental housing is consumed in heating, cooking, refrigeration, and (for a lucky few) air conditioning. Just knowing that my old fridge, stove, and baseboard heaters use a ton of electricity doesn't empower me to replace them. Moving from landlord- to tenant-billed hydro eliminates incentives for landlords to upgrade outdated, power-hungry appliances and heating systems or replace draughty windows with newer, better-insulated ones.

A fairer solution would be to allow sub-metering conversions only after landlords have met a minimum standard for energy saving retrofits or subsidized upgrades to their properties. Alternatively, major appliances and heating could be metered seperately from other outlets so that renters are only forced to pay for energy use that they can control.

Additional press: Toronto Star.

Incomplete downloading ties municipal hands on social housing

2006-02-27T17:33:00.000-05:00

Counties seeks changes in social housing regs, Brockville Recorder & Times, 27 Feb 2006

Dorothy Theobald, director of social services [for the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville], made a presentation recently in Toronto to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister John Gerretsen asking for his support to develop specific proposals.

"We have a very old stock of housing, some of it 60 years old, and there are challenges in maintaining it," said Theobald...

One of the crucial questions that needs to be settled is the debentures currently held by the province on buildings downloaded to the municipality eight years ago, she said. Without local control over those debentures, making capital plans for housing improvements is very difficult, she said.

"It is a barrier to doing other things," said Theobald.

"What we need really is flexibility around debentures. The whole mortgage system should be within the municipality. If we can get that, we can take what we have and reinvest to the best of our ability."

The request parallels a similar resolution by the Social Housing Services Corporation in 2004, which called for the transfer of mortgage administration to municipalities to complete the downloading process.

Creepy contractor sells fast evictions

2006-02-26T22:59:00.000-05:00

Entrepreneur zeroes in on problem tenants, Toronto Star, 25 Feb 2006

A Toronto entrepreneur, [Ellen] Weiss may be blazing a trail in the most recession-proof industry of all.

She gets rid of people for a living. Landlords need only call her company, Evictions Inc., and give her a name. No more than six weeks later, Weiss delivers the keys to an empty apartment...

For anywhere from $65 to a "top-of-the-line" $1,000, she will deliver the notices, sit through hearings and pre-hearings, ride along with the sheriff for the actual eviction — and even spruce the apartment up once it's empty.

Time for an aside. How classy is Weiss' business? I can't speak to that point, but what I can tell you is that she uses craigslist and advises clients [click 'tenant selection' on the left of her page to find the following quote] to literally spy on applicants:

See if the prospective tenant takes off their shoes when entering your property. Take a look in their car if they have one. See if it is tidy or in shambles. Drive past their current residence and see how it looks, if possible find a reason to knock on their door and ask them something so that you can have a look inside.

Alright, back to the Star article. Later on, the writer balances his piece with a tenant advocate's side of the story:

Trouble is, the people don't disappear so easily into filing cabinets.

"What we do know is that the shelters are full of people," says Dan McIntyre, program co-ordinator for the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations. "Some of them are actually on the street."

Indeed, an eviction, much like a bad credit rating, can haunt tenants for years, since most landlords research an applicant's rental history.

"If you mess around with your credit card and you don't pay it, you're going to get a very bad credit rating and you may not be able to borrow money to buy that new Ferrari," McIntyre says. "But that's it. You don't lose your home."

More handy landlord tips from The Star

2006-02-26T22:15:00.000-05:00

Learn the rules of the renting game, Toronto Star, 26 Feb 2006

Applying for a rent increase above the guideline costs $500. That's just for the first unit, with a $5 charge for each other unit to a maximum of $1,000.

"It's not feasible for landlords with just one unit to apply for a rent increase," says Susan Wankiewicz, executive director of the Landlord's Self-Help Centre.

If landlording is basically a game, then what's the object of the game? Profitable investment, according to the body of the article, particularly by evicting tennants in arrears as soon as legally possible.

And hey, once your unit's vacant, you can hike the rent as high as you'd like without having to apply for the "unfeasible" regulated increase. Is this one of the vacancy decontrol game's unwritten rules?

Just last week the same columnist featured more kindly advice, urging landlords to go easy on first-time cheque-bouncers to avoid turning "good" tenants "bad."

I guess at the end of the day, the difference between good and bad tenants has more to do with the property owner's satisfaction with the size of the rent cheque than the tenant's ability to pay it like clockwork.

Tenants liable for too-old smoke detectors?

2006-02-24T08:35:00.000-05:00

Smoke detectors soon to be mandatory in Ontario: RONA offers expert advice, Press Release, 23 Feb 2006

[A]s of March 1, 2006 it will be mandatory under the Ontario Fire Prevention Code for all dwellings to have a smoke detector installed on every floor...

Owners, landlords and tenants who do not respect the new law may be handed tickets up to $325 or fines of up to $25,000; smoke detectors more than 10 years old must be replaced.

As a tenant, the second-to-last thing I want (the very last being to meet with a fiery demise because of a faulty smoke detector) is to get stuck with a huge fine, but I'm not sure about the age of my smoke detector; maybe it's 10 years old, maybe not.

But property managers can take ages to get around to these things. Thankfully, Rona rides to the rescue by offering "up to 28% off on selected models." With a sweet deal like that, a new detector must cost way less than the possible fine. Sounds like the safest bet is to replace the smoke detector on my own, just in case, which I believe is part of the reason why Rona issued the misleading press release quoted above.

But wait, why should the onus be on me, to the extent that I'll be fined for my landlord's negligence? The truth is, it's not. In fact, tenants are not liable for old or missing smoke detectors: landlords are. As the Office of the Fire Marshall explains,

It is the responsibility of landlords to ensure their rental properties comply with the law.

If you are a tenant of a rental property and do not have the required number of smoke alarms, contact your landlord immediately. It is against the law for tenants to remove the batteries or tamper with the alarm in any way.

A Globe and Mail article written at the time the new rules were first proposed quotes Fire Marshall Bernard Moyle as saying,

there will be "zero tolerance" for tenants who disable smoke alarms and for landlords who allow maintenance of them to lapse. But firefighters won't be searching homes to ensure compliance, he said. "If we have to issue a ticket to a homeowner for a $10 smoke alarm, that's a failure... [t]his isn't about punishing people, it's about getting the message out."

So, it seems that while you may be fined for removing or disabling smoke detectors, landlords alone are responsible for furnishing a sufficient number of new smoke detectors to begin with.

Additional press: Pulse24.com, Beach-Riverdale Town Crier, Barrie Advance, Halton Herald, Fort Frances Times, City of Toronto.

Another year, another rent increase

2006-02-21T07:31:00.000-05:00

Source: Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal.

Gov't responds to eviction spike story

2006-02-21T05:12:00.000-05:00

Ontario pledges new tenant act, Toronto Star, 21 Feb 2006

The Ontario government will introduce a new landlord and tenant act this spring that should reduce the number of evictions, Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister John Gerretsen said yesterday.

"What we intend to do in a new piece of legislation (is) to protect the vulnerable people that are good tenants and should not be taken advantage of by landlords," he told reporters yesterday...

Carol Kiley, manager of program development at the tribunal, [said] the numbers of eviction applications may be higher this year based on the sheer volume of renters in the market.

On average, applications to evict increase by about 2 to 3 per cent every year.

"Termination applications increase every time the population increases and we've had a very large population increase," Kiley said.

I will assume Ms. Kiley means the population of renting households (i.e. the quantity of lived-in units), not the population occupying rental housing (i.e. the number of people). All else held constant, the number of eviction attempts should scale with the number of leases (for which the number of units is a rough proxy), not the number of occupants or total population of a city or province.

A ten-point increase in the rental housing stock would be a very large increase indeed. Could the total number of vacant units plus new construction from 2004 to 2005 have accommodated a 10% expansion in the number of occupied rental housing units in Ontario?

Expansion may tell part - but cannot tell all - of the story here.

Update: Some digging at StatsCan produced relevant, if not too recent, data to shed some light on this question. The figures below show the growth and annual change, respectively, in Ontario's rental housing stock.

Source: CANSIM II Series V227532.

The closest Ontario's annual rental housing stock growth has ever come to 10% was the 6.8% increase in 1969, which marks the peak of the period when much of Toronto's present high-rise apartment stock (including my current place in North York) was built. That's not growth, that's a boom akin to the recent surge in condo development.

Human rights changes may aid tenants

2006-02-20T16:18:00.000-05:00

Ontario overhauling human rights system, Employment Law Today, 20 Feb 2006

"We are pleased to see the government make these important changes to the system," said Kathy Laird, director of the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. "They are long overdue. A human rights system that is able to promote greater tolerance and deal more effectively with human rights violations will ensure Ontarians are treated with dignity and respect."

Additional press: Toronto Star, Ontario Attorney General.

Good landlords produce good tenants

2006-02-20T16:11:00.000-05:00

Finding — and keeping — good tenants, Toronto Star, 19 Feb 2006

Thomas Ho owns two condo units that he rents out. He thinks landlords should respect tenants and treat them as customers.

"Give them some leeway," he says. "I've had cases where the cheques bounced, but I didn't think anything of it. As soon as the tenants realized the cheque bounced, they contacted me and apologized and deposited the money in my bank account right away.

"I've also seen other landlords who freaked out the first time such a thing happened. This can turn a good tenant into a bad tenant."

Eviction applications up 10% in 2005

2006-02-20T15:34:00.000-05:00

Eviction bids soar in Ontario, Toronto Star, 20 Feb 2006

Toronto landlords are seeking to evict tenants at a higher rate than ever before, and last year filed nearly 30,000 applications to kick people out of their homes, a tenants' group says.

The Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations said the 29,090 eviction applications filed by landlords here last year is a 10 per cent jump over the previous year, and the highest on record since Ontario implemented the Tenant Protection Act in 1998.

Across the province, more than half the tenants "were evicted without a hearing at the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal," the association said in a statement.

No figures on actual evictions are available for Toronto...

No graphical figures were provided, either, so I produced a basic chart using Metro Tenants' data [1,2] to give readers a better sense of the upward trend.

With my social scientist's hat on, I should add that to draw any firm conclusions about how shocking the 10% (and other, smaller) jumps are it will be necessary to determine if number of occupied rental housing units in each region rose or fell over time [3], and see if the growth in evictions kept pace with the number of rental housholds in the same period.

Additional press: National Post, LTV News, London Free Press, Ottawa Sun.