SOLUTION: Preventing Renovictions

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In some Canadian markets with low vacancies, renovictions are increasingly common. This is a practice where landlords force eviction, typically by raising rents above rent control guidelines, under the premise of a renovation. Often those renovations are cosmetic in nature, with little to no benefit to the tenant. Due to this trend, tenants are often concerned by news of retrofits in their buildings, which have come to signal pending housing insecurity rather than improved housing quality.

Municipal Actions & Solutions

• Protect Rental Housing
  • Introduce Rental Replacement policies which make 'condo-ization' illegal.

• Data & Tracking
  • Create inventory of buildings, work orders, code violations, etc.
  • Keep track of all apartment buildings sold, and immediately inform tenants of their rights;
  • Regulate and publicly register all tenant "buyouts."
  • Encourage systems like rentsafe in Toronto and investigate how this can be used to help protect existing affordable rental housing stock by capturing amount of rents tenants are paying

• Enforcement:

• Increase authority of Municipal Licensing and Standards divisions within cities to enforce housing standards. (See Toronto's Rent Safe program)
• Work with organizations related to safety authorities, such as the ESA in Ontario, to identify problem buildings.

• Tenant Protection:
  • Create an anti-displacement strategy and introduce tenant protection policies
    • Ensure owners/developers give all displaced tenants suitable housing options;
    • Consider enforcing new/existing regulations on tenant buyouts and tenant relocation through building permit approval processes and all tools/mechanisms available to the Municipality;
  • Provide tenants and/or owners with resources for connecting someone in crisis with the right support system;
• Tenant Education: Tenants need to know their rights (eg. right to refusal for entry)
  • Municipalities may fund/support tenants associations