BARRIE ACTION COMMITTEE FOR WOMEN
PETERBOROUGH SOCIAL PLANNING COUNCIL
EMPRESS GARDENS RETIREMENT RESIDENCE
YWCA OF PETERBOROUGH, VICTORIA AND HALIBURTON
SENIOR CITIZENS COUNCIL PETERBOROUGH
VOLUNTEERS AND INFORMATION PETERBOROUGH
PETERBOROUGH COMMUNITY LEGAL CENTRE
PETERBOROUGH AND DISTRICT HOME BUILDERS ASSOCIATION
SOCIAL HOUSING CONTACT GROUP OF PETERBOROUGH
VICTORIA COUNTY ACCESS TO PERMANENT HOUSING COMMITTEE
ONTARIO PRIVATE CAMPGROUND ASSOCIATION
CONTENTS
Thursday 29 August 1996
Rent control
AON Inc
Mr Ross Smith
Barrie Action Committee for Women
Ms Monica Petzoldt
Ms Sherry Tingley
Peterborough Social Planning Council
Ms Jacqueline Powell
Ms Pat Jackson
Mrs Olive Lacey
Empress Gardens Retirement Residence
Mrs Shirley Shaw
YWCA of Peterborough, Victoria and Haliburton
Ms Karen Hjort-Jensen
Ms Lynn Zimmer
Senior Citizens Council Peterborough
Ms Jean Burkholder
Greek Canadian Community
Mr Jim Kabitsis
Mr Bob Babcock
Volunteers and Information Peterborough
Ms Rosemary O'Donnell
Peterborough Community Legal Centre
Ms Martha Macfie
United Citizens Organization
Mr Ray Peters
Mr John Taylor
Peterborough and District Home Builders Association
Mr Murray Davenport
Social Housing Contact Group of Peterborough
Mr John Martyn
Mrs Cheryl Procter
Victoria County Access to Permanent Housing Committee
Mrs Zita Devan
Mr Rodger Cooper
Ontario Private Campground Association
Mrs Sheron Burgis
Tenants Victoria
Mr Ted Starr
Ms Mary Ann Fitzpatrick
Ms Cindi Zwicker
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT
Chair / Président: Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls PC)
*Mr JackCarroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
*Mr HarryDanford (Hastings-Peterborough PC)
Mr JimFlaherty (Durham Centre / -Centre PC)
Mr BernardGrandmaître (Ottawa East / -Est L)
*Mr ErnieHardeman (Oxford PC)
*Mr RosarioMarchese (Fort York ND)
*Mr BartMaves (Niagara Falls PC)
Mrs SandraPupatello (Windsor-Sandwich L)
Mrs LillianRoss (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC)
*Mr MarioSergio (Yorkview L)
*Mr R. GaryStewart (Peterborough PC)
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre / -Centre PC)
Mr LenWood (Cochrane North / -Nord ND)
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre / -Centre PC)
*In attendance /présents
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr AlvinCurling (Scarborough North / -Nord L) for Mrs Pupatello
Mr GerardKennedy (York South / -Sud L) for Mr Grandmaître
Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC) for Mr Young
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand PC) for Mrs Ross
Mr BruceSmith (Middlesex PC) for Mr Flaherty
Mr WayneWettlaufer (Kitchener PC) for Mr Tascona
Clerk / Greffière: Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel: Ms Elaine Campbell, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1200 in the Ramada Inn, Peterborough.
RENT CONTROL
The Chair (Mr Jack Carroll): Good afternoon. As is our custom, we try to start on time and stay on time. It's great to be in Peterborough, the city of my birth. I'm delighted to be back here again. This morning I took Mr Marchese out for a run through the wonderful streets of Peterborough, over the Hunter Street bridge and over by the lift lock and he survived that, so he's back with us.
It's great to be here in Gary Stewart's riding. We're here to listen to input from the people of Peterborough and area about the proposed changes to the rent control legislation. We've been around the province this week and have had some very interesting input. I'm sure that will continue here in Peterborough.
I ask that people in the audience respect the position that the people who have been given official status to present have the right to be heard, and those people sitting on the panel have the right to question them, without any unnecessary interruptions. I ask the audience to participate in that with us.
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): Just one short question: You and Mr Marchese running down the street were not occasion to be arrested or at least stopped?
The Chair: No, we weren't. Nobody knew who we were. We were a bit of the Odd Couple, but other than that we were not arrested.
AON INC
The Chair: Our first presenters this morning represent AON Inc, Ross Smith, president; Hugh Smith, senior vice-president; and Braydon Smith, vice-president of operations. Good morning, gentlemen. Welcome. You have 20 minutes. Should you allow time for questions, we rotate questions in order, dividing up the time evenly, and we would start this morning with Mr Marchese. The floor is yours.
Mr Ross Smith: Mr Chairman. ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, my name is Ross Smith and I represent AON Inc. As you have stated, I am the president.
AON owns and manages approximately 1,000 rental units in Peterborough and surrounding area and currently employs 105 people on their direct payroll here in Peterborough. We appreciate that the government has recognized that the rent control system is in need of major overhaul. This is one step towards fixing a problem for us. Let us review the tenant protection legislation as proposed by you.
The legislation that you presented and sent out and circulated is designed for Toronto as was the legislation in 1975. The discussion paper is premised on all the problems, requirements and happenings in Metropolitan Toronto. One of the things that happens to us poor people in the outlying regions is that we never get heard even though we represent, in the outlying regions in the Ontario area, a greater number than the people in the city of Toronto.
Who are the active proponents in this proposed tenant protection legislation? I've included with my submission to you circulations, sent out and paid for by the council of the city of Toronto, that went around Toronto with the names of all the councillors. They were having a meeting on August 19 and they were chartering buses at the expense of the citizens of Toronto. In this circulation that was sent out they referred to the housing crisis as worsening.
This is nothing more than the city of Toronto using scare tactics, using their power and influence and the money of the taxpayers of Toronto to influence the outlying areas and influence this committee. If the city of Toronto wants rent controls, I think this committee should turn all that legislation over to Toronto and let them run their own rent controls the way they want to do it, because what they have outlined is scare tactics that never, ever worked before.
The second thing we have is -- who's the biggest organizer of the city of Peterborough? This is the Coalition to Save Tenants Rights. Here's what they circulated in the city of Peterborough. Right on the bottom it says, "Supported by Toronto city council." What we're really hearing today is the city of Toronto coming into Peterborough and influencing this board and this committee. We think this is wrong, because these people and the city council of Toronto don't even understand how things work in the outlying regions. That's our opinion and it's a point we want to really make to you today.
Controls are not regionally the same. The Ontario government has to understand that vacancy rates, employment statistics, land market values and housing affordability are regional factors. These are the most important things you have to understand and the committee has to understand: We're not the city of Toronto. We're a regional area and we have different problems than the city of Toronto.
Uniform controls for all of Ontario remain inherently unworkable and unfair to the people of Peterborough and the regional people of Ontario. Why should taxpayers of the city of Peterborough and areas outside Metropolitan Toronto support a legislation that's designed solely for Toronto? We don't believe that you can have any form of legislation that represents and handles and meets the needs of the regional area of Ontario and meets Toronto's needs.
Let's go through, and I'll outline to you why we feel that you have to look at the regional factors: the market, vacancies, the housing and affordability.
Housing costs control rents in the regional area. It is very important that you understand what our housing costs are. In the city of Peterborough a three-bedroom house in the older district can be purchased for less than $70,000, and a condominium in Omemee today can be purchased for $34,900. Attached to my submission to you is the real estate for the Peterborough Examiner, August 24, 1996, which outlines two houses in that circular. Many more can be found and many more are readily available.
What this does is control your rents, because the marketplace is controlling the housing costs and the housing costs indirectly are going to control your rents, because if you get your rents up too high, people are just going to move into these houses and move out. They have alternative housing here. This is a regional factor in a regional market situation.
Let's turn and look at vacancy rates in the areas. I refer you to what I've submitted to you: vacancy rates for the Peterborough area based on the October 1995 survey. We believe that these rates have gone up. We estimate that the current vacancy rate in the city of Peterborough is 5.5%. Let me just review these with you: Cobourg is 3.3%; Lindsay is 4%; Port Hope is 10.9%; Peterborough is 3.4%; Belleville is 4.7%; Trenton is 9.1%; and the city of Ottawa is 3.8%. Those areas and those vacancies, all those cities are in an area where nothing can go up because of your vacancies, and these vacancies are going to control your marketplace. We want to be self-controlled areas.
What cities have less than 1% vacancy? The city of Toronto, the only city we have in all of Ontario that is under 1%, and don't forget that CMHC has trouble, when they're doing their vacancy counts, in counting the condominiums in the city of Toronto. Many of the condominiums available for rent in the city of Toronto do not get counted.
If you look at the vacancy rate of six or fewer units in our area, they can run as high as 25%, so buildings with six units and less would have greater vacancies. CMHC doesn't include them in its tallies because they're harder to inventory and at the same time they would distort the true numbers, possibly, in the larger buildings.
The vacancies that I've outlined to you here are regional factors and regional things based on what the marketplace has, and this will control your rents.
In the paper that you circulated for comments you talked about protection from unfair rent increases. Vacancies, the housing affordability we've outlined to you, will control this. You're in a free market situation whereby the rents will be controlled.
In the outlying areas, outside the city of Toronto, we would suggest that consideration be given to putting in a rental ombudsman. The idea here would be that if an unusual situation occurs, you would have to go before -- in other words, if you have an excessive rent increase, there's a mechanism whereby the tenant can go and have his rent reviewed to see whether it was unjustly made. That's what we should be installing in the outlying areas to handle any exorbitant rent changes.
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The government has to fully understand that the apartment buildings in the outlying regions of Ontario are 20 to 35 years old and require excessive dollars for maintenance. Government policies have to be geared towards maintaining this inventory of rental units at a very acceptable level. I think that may be a problem in Toronto too, but we're in the outlying regions and we think that we have a problem. We have to maintain our buildings. It's going to be more difficult, possibly, than in the Metropolitan Toronto area.
The right of a tenant to make a rent reduction: This was one of the features in the paper that you circulated. To us, this is an absurd policy which can be abused by the resident. One of the goals of the tenant protection system is to reduce red tape, but here you are reinstating red tape. I'll give you a case in point.
A person moved into an apartment unit. The previous owner, who actually occupied that unit, had installed a central vacuum system. The central vacuum system was not working and had never worked. It wasn't operational when it was rented. It wasn't a complete system. After a year of applications and hearings, a rent reduction came through at $1.32 per month. To me, this is an abuse of a system and should not be included in your paper. Tenant reductions and disputes should be handled by a rental Ombudsman and the existing legislation should not be preserved.
Illegal charges: These as well could be handled by your rental ombudsman and an application should never come forward unless it has good justification. This is your mechanism for solving problems and solving disputes, whereby you sit down and you go through it. This person has to be knowledgeable in the business and in the area and non-political.
Vacated units: The landlord will negotiate the incoming tenant's rent. This is an absurd concept, based on the vacancies that were outlined to you. This only applies to the city of Toronto, which has a vacancy rate of less than 1%; it is not applicable to the regional areas of Ontario.
The next point: The rent guidelines will not apply to new construction. This is the same legislation that was proposed in the original rent review legislation, and as soon as a number of buildings were built they came under rent control. I doubt that any investor would ever take the chance a second time, to build a building and take the chance that it's not going to come under rent control, particularly if the controls are still in place.
The other item you had was negotiating above-guideline increases; a resident volunteers to pay for capital improvements or a new service that he negotiates with the owner. This really is a misuse of a social program that you're trying to implement. What we have here is a situation where you could, if you had an unethical landlord, have him intimidate a tenant into the increase. Then he applies later on and says he was intimidated in this regard.
If you're going to do things like this, you should just lift the rent review program and let the market rents follow through and/or you refer that to your rental ombudsman, who handles this type of situation, and make sure it's done fairly and equitably, with a third party present. But you can't arbitrarily negotiate a change in rent, because that's not fair maybe to the new tenant coming in who doesn't want these changes.
The rent registry was another item that you had indicated you were going to remove. You went to a great deal of expense in putting in the rent registry, which can easily be updated. It may be difficult in Toronto, but in the outlying areas, it is not difficult to update or change this registry. We have had no problem with the registry other than the fact that sometimes internally they didn't have the numbers correct. To replace the registry, we think there has to be a mechanism whereby you go to a person and discuss your rent, and this is maybe your rental Ombudsman who would be there, and he would fill in the place of the rent registry.
The other item that we talk about in the paper is the maximum rents. Your legal maximum rents are rents that building owners can increase to, and if he is not presently charging that amount, in a recovering economy and with lower vacancy rates there's a possibility that he could use these increases for the maintenance of the buildings in the future.
At present the average rents in the city of Peterborough are $585.43 for a one-bedroom and $687.40 for a two-bedroom. In the outlying areas in our region here today, we have buildings that currently are renting for $597 a month for a one-bedroom and $657 for a two-bedroom. The legal maximums are $791 for a one-bedroom and $864 for a two-bedroom. We feel that these legal maximums that are there, if the rent review legislation stays, we have to have it because at present we haven't been able to recover it because of the unemployment and the economic climate in our area. At present you're looking at reducing it, eliminating it when a unit comes vacant, and then all of a sudden our rents would actually go down. In a recovering economy, we could not recover these funds in the future.
You also refer to maintenance by increased rents. It seems to be the repeated direction of this paper that if a unit becomes vacant, you're able to put your rents up to the market rents. This is not the case here in Peterborough, as I've just outlined to you. Basically what you have here is that in the city of Toronto you can possibly do that, but in the outlying regions you can't do that. This is where we tell you that the outlying areas in the regions of Ontario are in a recession, many of them still, and they have high unemployment.
The other item we think you should be looking at in your review of your paper is your security deposit. A security deposit protects the tenant in the unit who's a good tenant, because what it does is it stops the abuse of bad tenants who come in, leave the place in shambles, destroy it; it makes the landlord go to a great deal of expense and cost going forward through the courts to try to recover his money. Here he can turn to the security deposit and take it. At the same time, you would use your rental ombudsman to review this, and if he felt there was abuse of your security deposit, then he would refund it. But it's very easy to take a rental unit, take your pictures and present it to your man; in two seconds, he can figure out whether this is an abuse of the system or not.
The other one -- you've heard that we now have to take pets. We think you should have pet deposits. As you're aware, residents are permitted to have pets. Some of our largest damage to our units is a direct result of pets, as well as fleas getting into the neighbouring units. This deposit should be in the neighbourhood of $500 and encourages the resident to be responsible for his or her pet. We think this is a good thing and it helps other tenants who are good tenants, who are responsible, who look after their pets. We think it should be included in any review that's taking place.
The Chair: Just to let you know, Mr Smith, you're down to your last two minutes.
Mr Ross Smith: Okay. The other item we want to discuss is in situ rent subsidies. Land owners who maintain their properties could be approved by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to take in situ rent supplement grants from the government, "in situ" meaning a person who is living in the unit currently.
In summation, I think this committee has to look at the vacancy rates, the employment rates and the statistics in the outlying areas.
Second, if the city of Toronto needs rent controls, we should turn the rent controls over to the municipality of the city of Toronto and save the taxpayers of Ontario $400 million to $500 million.
Third, the removal of rent controls will assist the people in need directly, and this can be done through the in situ rent supplement that I outlined to you.
Finally, the security deposits help the person who is a good tenant and a good resident in the building by keeping the costs down generally. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen. We do appreciate your attendance with us this morning and your input into our discussion process.
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BARRIE ACTION COMMITTEE FOR WOMEN
The Chair: Our next presenter is Sherry Tingley from the Barrie Action Committee for Women. Good afternoon and welcome to our committee. The floor is yours.
Ms Monica Petzoldt: Good afternoon. I would like to thank you all for allowing us the chance to address this committee. I'd like to start, first of all, by saying who we are.
The Barrie Action Committee for Women was founded in approximately 1989 and is dedicated to social, political and economic equality for women. Over half of our members are women living in poverty, so often we are looking through the lenses of poverty. Over the years in our community in Barrie, we have worked to ensure that those most affected by issues and decisions being made have meaningful input into those decisions.
First off, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Monica Petzoldt and I'm a long-time member of the action committee. I've been a tenant in private and non-profit housing for over 20 years. I currently sit as one of the tenants on the board of directors of the Barrie Municipal Non-Profit Housing and we provide housing to more than 2,500 people in the city of Barrie. I'm also a founding member of the Municipal Tenants Network, a network that represents tenants who are living in municipal non-profit housing. I currently am working coordinating an advocacy project for marginalized women. I'm also a single parent of three children.
With me is Sherry Tingley, a founding member of the Barrie Action Committee for Women. She has worked as a community volunteer for many years, sitting on such groups as the family violence committee of the Simcoe County Board of Education, Best Start Barrie and the maternal newborn committee of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie. She works as a coordinator of a small non-profit in Barrie. She has lived in both private and non-profit housing for over 15 years. Sherry was appointed a representative of the United Tenants of Ontario to the Ministry of Housing advisory committee. She's also a single parent of one child.
Both of us were tenant members of the Ministry of Housing's working group on tenant participation in non-profit programs. We worked on that from September to January 1993.
For single parents living on family benefits since the cuts in October 1995, the shelter allowance has dropped dramatically, for example, for a single parent of one child, from $652 to $511, and in Barrie the CMHC October 1995 average for a two-bedroom apartment was $712. This shortfall of $201 must be taken from a basic needs allowance of $446, leaving only $245 for all basic needs including food. With 40% of families before the cuts paying over the old shelter allowance, we know now that many people have had to choose between feeding their children or keeping a roof over their heads. In our area, for at least 10 families, the question of giving up their children for adoption has been a serious consideration and, in two cases, a reality.
But not only for sole-support mothers receiving family benefits does shelter cause a concern. In our experience, shelter is the number one priority and a constant struggle for all single parents. Women who want a good neighbourhood, clean, safe and appropriate shelter for their children are often forced to pay well over 50% of their limited income to provide it.
I'm going to pass it over to Sherry now.
Ms Sherry Tingley: The Lampert report, released in the fall of 1995, estimates that 25% of tenants move every year and that over a five-year period 70% of tenants move at least once. According to the 1991 census, there were 8,575 tenant households in Simcoe county, and the percentage of people, not just tenants, who had moved in the last year in the city of Barrie was 27%.
With these figures in mind, it is easy to see that under vacancy decontrol, as proposed in this consultation paper, five years from now we'll see a substantial loss of affordable housing as rents will move upwards each time a unit is vacated. It is our hope that this committee will ponder what this will mean to the children of Ontario.
Was the intent of the voters of Ontario on June 8, 1995, to create a system of vacancy decontrol that would mean that many of our children -- and really our children are our future -- will go without good food, would be excluded from things such as baseball, hockey, school trips; that they would grow up without hope really; that they would die in fires -- we know that this is a reality -- in substandard housing so that landlords could make as much profit as the market would bear? I don't think so, and we don't think so.
Since the welfare cuts, we have talked to women who have moved in with families after losing their housing. They have had to move into trailer parks, cottages, and basements; they have worried about their children's diets of pasta, tuna -- and that was recommended to them -- bread, with no fresh fruit or vegetables. Even if they managed to stay in their current unit, under your proposal landlords would be entitled to an automatic increase of the guideline amount up to 4% for capital repairs and an additional unlimited amount for property taxes and utilities. In the past few years, the guideline has been around 3%. If 4% is added for capital repairs -- and of course this might be the marble counter top; I guess there's a bit of negotiation, but some of us haven't negotiated very successfully with our landlords -- tenants may see increases in the 7% to 10% range. This will force many single parents and their children to move, thus starting the ball rolling on vacancy decontrol. Where will they go? Where will our children live?
We really wanted to know if this government has copies of any studies that show the impact on tenants of the proposed changes to rent control. Do you have any studies that can show us what the new rents will be on existing units and the supposed new units? We want to know how many rental units will be lost to the proposed scrapping of the Rental Housing Protection Act.
I don't need to tell members of this committee about some of the places that our children live in now. I'm sure you've all canvassed in your communities and communities outside of Metropolitan Toronto, and you've talked to people who are struggling and they're really hoping for a better life for themselves and their children, people who are scared to complain, who are paying too much rent. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether you've actually heard them.
If this government is serious about protecting tenants and creating better communities for people who live in Ontario, they would consider doing the following:
You would send a notice to tenants from the rent registry about what their legal rent is and what to do about the difference. I'm sure you've heard about people paying above the legal rent.
You would fund tenant organizations to help tenants understand their responsibilities and their rights and to fight the bad landlords, because I'm sure you've heard about bad landlords. I know that the tenant advocacy funding ran out in July and I find it ironic that there isn't any tenant advocacy funding just when we start on this process of these hearings.
Immediately fund an independent study of the situation of this province's children in terms of their accommodation.
Find out about the trailer parks and the slums in our towns and cities and then do something about it.
Reinstate the social housing program. This will create jobs and ensure that our children grow up with some chance of being part of society and with some hopes for the future.
Immediately return the shelter allowance portion of the welfare cheques to the pre-October 1995 rates in recognition of the highest shelter costs in Canada. Recipients are only entitled to the shelter costs they pay out and up to the maximum allowed.
We concur with Dr Hulchanski's recommendation that this committee recommend that these proposals be scrapped and that new proposals for rental housing supply be brought forward based on a recognition of the problem of the lack of effective market demand among Ontario's tenant population.
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We would also add that those most affected by these proposals need to have an opportunity to have meaningful input into any changes. To come today to speak to this committee we both have had to miss a day of work, we've had to pay for our gas and our lunch, although we got lost and haven't had lunch, and this money was taken from our children. Like almost all single mothers, any extra money we have goes to ensuring that they have the things they need to participate as members of their community. It's important to us.
In conclusion, we'd like to point out that it is strange that this government scrapped a successful program of social housing, co-ops and non-profits, a program that was creating jobs and creating communities -- we live in them and have lived in them -- for the most vulnerable people in Ontario, to give a tax cut to I'm not sure who. I haven't seen it. Now they really are asking tenants to pay for a program, because I imagine tenants will be paying for this private market program, that is supposed to create new units, but with no proof that it will do it. In fact, virtually all the evidence I've seen, and I've watched some of the hearings, that was presented to this committee shows just the opposite: that ending the current rent control program will not lead to the construction of affordable housing stock. We don't agree that tenants should pay for this and we think the odds of tenants coming out ahead would probably be better at Rama casino.
As tenants and as single mothers, we think that landlords, and I guess this government, would like us to believe in a field of dreams: If you remove rent controls, they'll build affordable housing for tenants. Thank you.
The Chair: We've got about two minutes per caucus left for questions, beginning with Mr Marchese.
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Thank you both for your presentation. You read the report obviously.
Ms Tingley: Yes.
Mr Marchese: This is called the tenant protection legislation proposal. Is there anything in this proposal that protects tenants, in your view?
Ms Tingley: No. I can't see anything that protects tenants and protects the most vulnerable tenants.
Mr Marchese: You've heard Mr Smith, the previous speaker?
Ms Tingley: Yes.
Mr Marchese: And we've heard from many landlords who simply say that we should let the market take care of things, that the government should just get out of the way, abandon rent controls. Mr Smith looks at the vacancy rates and says: "That's your protection. We have high vacancy rates." It's 3.5%, but he estimates it's 5.5%. He gives a list of other places where the vacancy rate is high, so he says, "That's really your protection." As a tenant, I think you have a lot of experience. They claim that we don't have any experience; the builders and landlords have it. Do you agree with his propositions?
Ms Tingley: No, I don't agree. In Barrie and in the province, it's a very tight market. I don't see why you would allow the necessities of life just to be thrown -- is that going to happen with open-heart surgery soon too? I don't know where we're going. I am a landlord as well. I do administer 30 units in the area.
Mr Marchese: One quick question: This man says the problem's in Toronto, that it's really a Toronto problem.
Ms Tingley: No.
Mr Marchese: Do you have a Peterborough problem as a tenant? He says the problem of this whole thing around tenant protection and rent control is simply a Toronto problem. Is it a Toronto problem or do you have problems in Peterborough?
Ms Tingley: I'm from Barrie. Yes, we have problems in Barrie. We've talked to tenants in Thunder Bay. When there was a United Tenants of Ontario, we talked to tenants across the province, and they all needed protection.
Mr John L. Parker (York East): Thank you very much for appearing before us and for your presentation. I heard your words this morning. I appreciate that you are facing the consultation paper with some degree of cynicism. I think that's fair that you do that.
Frankly, I'm somewhat cynical about the status quo and I'll tell you why. I represent the riding of York East. That's a Toronto riding. We've heard already this morning about the problems in Toronto. I have those problems in my riding. We have a lot of tenants in my riding and we have a very low vacancy rate in my riding. Frankly, I don't know the situation in Barrie, but we've heard the situation in Toronto this morning and it's quite startling.
We also have severe problems with maintenance with some of our buildings. I routinely receive delegations from tenants in my constituency office who tell me of the problems they have in their buildings. The problems come in various sorts and various kinds, but one fundamental problem they've got at the bottom of it all is they feel trapped. They feel they have no place to go because there's no alternative for them, no choice for them, no vacancies for them to move into. They're held captive in their existing apartments.
I requested to be part of this committee so that I could tour the province and listen to people and put that forward as part of my search for solutions to the problem. I'm asking you this morning, what solutions can you give us to the problems that we've identified and the problems that we are seeing with the status quo, with the current situation?
Ms Tingley: You talked about maintenance and how they felt trapped; they wanted to move because of maintenance. It sounds like you have a number of bad landlords. I don't think you'd typify that all the landlords have horrific maintenance problems, but maybe that's what you are saying.
But I think you've probably seen successful tenant associations and organizations work very hard and push. There are rent strikes. There are all kinds of processes to push landlords to make maintenance change in the rent control. Currently when a work order goes out, the landlord can't raise the rent. They often want to stay. Single mothers want to stay. They want their kids to go to the same school; that's the first thing we hear. But in terms of feeling trapped, there are situations where people want to move, but I definitely --
The Chair: Mr Curling is getting upset because you're cutting into his time over here.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): I am not at all.
Ms Tingley: But in the proposal, if you're concerned with people feeling trapped and having no choice, I don't see how you're addressing that, because it very much concerns us that people will be at the mercy of landlords in terms of maintenance. There will be no reason to maintain the unit. The guideline can increase.
The Chair: We do have to go on. Unfortunately, we have to cut the time rather tight.
Mr Curling: I appreciate the indulgence of the Chairman, who has listened to the very good response to the honourable member. I think your presentation was right on in many of the things you've said, but the government would call you a special-interest group and it will not be dictated to by a special-interest group.
The previous presenter stated that the vacancy rate is about 5.5% in Peterborough. Do you have any people who need affordable housing, and is that a long list? Even with those 10%, would you still have people who are not able to access rental units with their income?
Ms Tingley: Very much so. I meant to call to find out exactly what the list was; I wasn't able to. But as somebody who administers a small social housing project, I get to talk to the people.
I had a call last week from a single mother who had lost her job and had to move. Her first concern was to keep her children in the same school and maintain that stability. I imagine she was a transfer, probably the hospital or OPSEU. She had quite a well-paying job and her UI was going to support her family, but she would have to move and she needed affordable housing. I wasn't able to give her much hope because the lists are so long. I did point out that the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul were something to keep in mind. She asked me why, and I really didn't have the heart to tell her that when she lost her current housing, they would help her live in a hotel room with her three children.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We do appreciate your input here this afternoon.
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PETERBOROUGH SOCIAL PLANNING COUNCIL
The Chair: Our next presenter is the Peterborough Social Planning Council, Jacqueline Powell and Jan Bowen. Welcome to our committee. The floor is yours.
Ms Jacqueline Powell: Good afternoon, honourable Chair and members of the legislative committee, and thank you very much for your time today. My name is Jacqueline Powell and I am speaking on behalf of the Peterborough Social Planning Council. With me is Jan Bowen. Jan is a member of the board of directors of the social planning council.
The mission of the social planning council is to work to build a strong and healthy community through research, community development and public education. As such, we're interested in the impact on the Peterborough community of the proposed changes to the legislation which governs tenant protection in Ontario.
In preparing this presentation, we have taken a community consultation approach. By that I mean that we've consulted with a range of individuals whom we consider knowledgeable and expert in the housing area. That list includes planners, housing advocates, tenants, social service delivery agents, providers of social housing, providers of mental health services and landlords.
We would like to make three related points in the presentation today. The first is to comment positively on some of the goals of the proposals; second, we will address the issue of affordability versus availability; and finally, we will speak to the anticipated outcome of the proposed changes on vulnerable groups in our community.
Our support for the proposals is for the spirit of the changes, which speak to protecting tenants from unfair rent increases, evictions and harassment, and providing strong security of tenure, creating a better climate for investment, maintenance and new construction and therefore creating jobs and improving enforcement of property maintenance standards. These are extremely worthwhile goals and ones which would most likely be embraced by everyone concerned with building a healthy community. The difficulty arises with some of the aspects which pertain to achieving these goals, where in fact they will counter the intended positive impact on the community. Our recommendation is that the proposals for changing the legislation be reviewed in the light of the stated goals, as some of the proposals seem contrary to the achievement of their own goals.
In the Peterborough community the most important factor which prevents the provision of "A decent home for everyone" -- that's the motto of our housing advisory committee -- is that of affordability. An adequate supply of rental accommodation, as evidenced by relatively high vacancy rates, currently at 3.4% in Peterborough, does nothing to assist the people who simply do not have enough money to afford to rent what is available.
One might assume that the market would respond and that rents would be lowered to levels which would allow these people to be housed. Experience has shown that even in times of excess supply of rental accommodation, the rental rates do not seem to decline. This observation was made by a provider of social services following the 21.6% cut in social assistance rates. For the most part, landlords were unable to lower rents to allow tenants to stay in their current housing, and rents throughout the community remained high.
In Peterborough it is also extremely unlikely that the proposed changes will result in the creation of affordable accommodation. Additional incentives will be needed to ensure that affordable rental accommodation is made available in our community.
One thing that is evident is that low-income people in Peterborough are spending a disproportionate share of their incomes on housing. At times that is in excess of 70%. Social planning council research indicates that fixed costs such as rent and utilities will be paid at the expense of items such as food, clothing and other essentials. In other words, people and, as we heard in the previous presentation, children will be going hungry, resorting to emergency food sources and going without adequate clothing in order to meet their housing costs. I hope you'll agree this is not something that should happen in a healthy community.
Supply of rental accommodation is not the most important housing issue in a community such as ours; it is affordability. In a 1994 housing study completed by the social planning council for the Peterborough housing advisory committee, it was determined that only 3.7% of our total housing stock in the Peterborough area is made up of social housing. That includes public housing, rent supplement units, non-profit housing and rural and native housing, and 85% of that is geared to income. So even with that small amount, only a portion of it is rent geared to income. Yet we have a community which experiences poverty rates of 32% for individuals and 10% for families as of the last census.
Combine that information with the fact that current rents are 10% to 76% above current shelter allowance levels for people on social assistance, and you begin to get a picture of a quiet but serious crisis in our community. With only 3.7% of our housing stock as social housing, the vast majority of low-income people in Peterborough are subject to market rents, and market rents have been found not to decrease even in times of excess supply, probably due to fixed costs which landlords face.
Additional means of providing affordable rental accommodation are needed in Peterborough, and the proposed changes to tenant legislation will not help in this regard.
Our recommendation is that the government investigate ways of encouraging the provision of affordable rental accommodation by private landlords, not-for-profit corporations, community groups and other interested parties. For example, it may be feasible to establish revolving loan funds for the construction of new units or renovation of existing units.
The final and related area on which we would like to comment is the impact of the proposed changes on some of the most vulnerable people in our community. For example, I'm referring to people with physical disabilities, people with mental health problems and frail elderly persons. These individuals face significant barriers to acquiring adequate housing in addition to the affordability barrier which all low-income people share. Under the proposed changes, these individuals will feel trapped in their present accommodation if the proposal to decontrol rent when a tenant leaves is implemented. They will be unable to leave their current housing even if it no longer meets their needs.
An added blow to the most vulnerable in our community is the recently announced closure of the Housing Resource Centre at Volunteers and Information Peterborough by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. This centre serves in excess of 4,000 tenants and landlords annually, and in many cases their clients are those having the most difficulty finding and keeping accommodation. Often the clients are single parents with children to raise. If employed, their employment incomes are inadequate to meet their needs and many have had to resort to social assistance, with shelter allowances well below the cost of average rents in Peterborough.
Under the proposed changes, not only will these individuals face the possibility of escalating rents, they will no longer have the services of the Housing Resource Centre to help them in their quest for affordable and decent housing.
We would like to take this opportunity to deliver a letter from the president of the social planning council to Mr Stewart, our MPP. This letter requests that Mr Stewart seek the reinstatement of the funding of the Housing Resource Centre, as this centre fulfils an extremely valuable function in our community in a way which is both cost-effective and efficient. In fact, the Housing Resource Centre is in the business of saving the government money, for example, through the prevention of repeat hospitalizations for the mentally ill. As such, the Housing Resource Centre is a good investment for government and one which gives good return for the money.
We recommend that the government re-examine the proposal to decontrol rents when a tenant vacates a unit in light of the negative impact which this will have on some of the most vulnerable people in our community and that the government reinstate funding for the Housing Resource Centre in light of the economic and social cost of closing that centre.
In conclusion, while we commend the spirit and intent of the proposed changes, we are concerned that the proposals will not lead to the development of a healthy and vibrant community in which there is, as the housing advisory committee states, a decent home for everyone and that, in combination with the closure of the Housing Resource Centre, we will see many individuals in our community in an extreme housing crisis, with nowhere to turn for support and assistance.
Now I would like to turn the last minute of my presentation over to Pat Jackson, a speaker from the audience who is here as a friend of the Housing Resource Centre.
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Interjection.
Mr Curling: Do you want to come to the mike.
Ms Pat Jackson: I would like to make you aware that there is a public demonstration going on outside in support of the Housing Resource Centre, which is closing tomorrow due to the discontinuing of provincial funding. The people standing with me would like to say that they are here to support tenants and also the Housing Resource Centre in Peterborough.
Mr Stewart, we would like to give you these petitions that have been signed in the last three days. The comments on the bottom speak for themselves. Please listen.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Raging Grannies.
Musical presentation.
Ms Powell: Are there questions?
The Chair: Are you through?
Mr Marchese: They're ready for questions.
Ms Powell: Yes, thank you.
The Chair: We've got about a minute and a half per caucus for questions, beginning with Mr Preston.
Mr Preston: We'll reserve our time.
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough): Thank you very much for your presentation. I accept your petitions and your letter. I should inform you that as of probably now, prior to your demonstration and your presentation, we are in the process of setting up a meeting with Marilyn Huels from the Housing Resource Centre.
On the tour that we've had this week we've heard a number of concerns from people that their housing resource centres have closed as well. In Thunder Bay the first eight people who made presentations were groups that were doing exactly the same thing as what the housing resource centres were doing. Please don't get the impression I'm taking anything away from them, but I think what we were looking at was that we had organizations doing these things that we in turn were spending a lot of money for. That's the number one thing.
The other thing was, do you not feel that these days there should be some responsibility on behalf of the people themselves? I guess that has a concern for me, that if we constantly keep doing things like this -- and certainly we heard a previous group that has a lot of staff doing a lot of consultation, or will, whatever, to assist the people to find housing.
The final thing is, in Thunder Bay, in Sault Ste Marie and here in Peterborough, we are now finding as the vacancy rate goes up, which it has in Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie, the rents are coming down. I look at Peterborough and the vacancy rate is lower than it was in 1993, but the cost of housing or the cost of units has decreased. Maybe just a comment, Ms Powell, if you would.
Ms Powell: There are a number of points there. I'll start with the issue of duplication of service. When you meet with Marilyn Huels, she can give you more details, but I am aware that a substantial amount of money was removed from this community and the service was centralized at the Housing Resource Centre, so in fact there's no duplication going on. I have been in the community long enough to have experienced what it was like before we had a Housing Resource Centre and I'm quite frankly very worried about it. As an agency person, where am I going to send people who don't have the help? They didn't have it six years ago; they won't have it now.
The Chair: Unfortunately, unless Mr Curling is ready to give up his time, I'm going to have to cut you off.
Mr Curling: Let me commend you for your presentation. I think it's right on. Immediately, the government sees you as a duplication and says you're irrelevant because you're a special-interest group and says that you should have some responsibility. The fact is, you have had responsibility representing the people who are in need.
One of the things that jumped out to me, if you could just quickly comment on it for me, is that 3.7% of the total housing stock in Peterborough is made available to social housing, including -- and then you list them. You're saying that regardless of what the vacancy rate is, only 3.7% of the stock is available to those more affordable -- tell me, what kind of impact is this having right now with the cutback of 21.6% for the most vulnerable people, social recipients who have gotten that from the government?
Ms Powell: People are having to take extraordinary means. I know people who have had to leave Peterborough and move to rural communities, where they hoped they would get less expensive rents, people who are sharing accommodation, people who are crowded in their accommodation. There are a number of moves being taken by people in an effort to help themselves, and I think there is a tremendous spirit of people wanting to do for themselves. However, that's just not always possible, given, as you said, that only 3.7% of the housing is social housing.
Mr Marchese: Thank you for demystifying some of the problems of this paper. We're talking about the goals of the proposal, but within the body of this paper it does not meet them. You're not the only one, but many are exposing that particular issue, and I thank you for that.
I also want to thank you for bringing to the attention the fact that the Housing Resource Centre at Volunteers has been closed down. United Tenants of Ontario has also been defunded, presumably because of duplication. Yet what we see is an attack on tenants at a time when we need people like those who work at the resource centre and United Tenants. They are defunding them.
I want to ask you a question too. There's not much time. Mr Stewart says people should do more for themselves. That's really at the heart of Conservative politics, so if people are not doing too well, it seems to be that it's their fault and that somehow they should pull themselves up and deal with the problems. What is your response to that?
Ms Powell: I think there is a tendency somehow to blame people for being in the circumstance, and if you look at the reality of the unemployment rates, the difficulty people have getting jobs, we have to broaden our view and stop blaming people who are in this situation and look at services like the Housing Resource Centre as a way for people to help themselves. They have to literally go out and seek those services. Nothing's done for them. It just provides them a resource to assist them.
Furthermore, the second part of that is there are vulnerable people in our community who will never be able to do for themselves 100%, and as a caring community, we need to look after their needs as well.
The Chair: Thank you very much, ladies. We appreciate your input this afternoon.
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OLIVE LACEY
The Chair: Our next presenter is Olive Lacey. Good afternoon. Welcome to our committee.
Mrs Olive Lacey: I'm pleased to be able to participate in these hearings on the discussion paper concerning the proposed tenant protection act. In the discussion paper the government proposes to make major changes to both the Landlord and Tenant Act and the Rent Control Act. As a tenant, I have been protected by the Landlord and Tenant Act and the Rent Control Act and its predecessor on several occasions over the past 10 years. I am very afraid that the proposed changes will leave me unprotected in the future.
It might be helpful if I give the committee some personal information about myself. I'm a 69-year-old senior citizen and a widow. I have minimal income which comes from the Canada pension and old age security. From May to October I live in a trailer park, just north of Peterborough, in Peterborough county. In the winter I live in a trailer park in Florida.
My husband and I bought our trailer after he was forced to stop working due to ill health. We were told by the doctor that he would be better of, healthwise, living in a warm climate during the winter. We signed a long-term lease for our lot at the trailer park in Peterborough county which will expire in 2004.
I have mentioned that on several occasions I have had to rely on tenant protection legislation. I would like to give the committee some details about those particular occasions.
Shortly after we moved into the trailer park, the park was sold and there followed a long period during which successive owners refused to repair or maintain it. During this period one owner tried to evict all the tenants by bringing one application in court. In that case the judge held that the landlord would have to bring separate applications for each tenant, as each tenant had their own lease. The landlord appealed the decision to Divisional Court, and when he lost there, tried to take the appeal to the Court of Appeal. However, he was not given leave to appeal.
The park fell into a terrible state of disrepair after a number of years during which there was no maintenance. My husband and I were forced to make a court application asking for an order that the landlord repair and maintain the park. The landlord argued that our tenancy wasn't covered by the Landlord and Tenant Act but the judge agreed that we were protected by the act.
In another instance our landlord cut off the water and hydro supplied to the park. I had to bring a motion to ask for an order that the hydro and water be reinstated. I was also able to get a court order requiring the owner to repair and maintain the park as required by the terms of our lease.
Because several successive landlords tried to increase the monthly maintenance charges above what was allowed in the lease and above what was allowed under rent control legislation, I filed an application under the Residential Rent Regulation Act in order to find out whether the act applied to my tenancy. The decision on that application was that the act did apply.
Right now the owner of the park is repairing and maintaining it. However, after buying the park, he required all the tenants to sign a new agreement for an increased monthly maintenance charge. All the tenants except me signed the agreement because they were tired of fighting with a long succession of landlords. I didn't sign the agreement because I felt my lease agreement, the Landlord and Tenant Act and the Rent Control Act fully covered all aspects of my tenancy. When I refused to sign the agreement, the new owner told me I would be summarily evicted in 2004, when my lease expires and I am 77 years old. So you can see why I'm afraid that any changes might leave me unprotected as a tenant.
I'm going to deal with a few points of particular concern to me now.
My first concern is that the government is considering lifting unit rent controls and changing to a system of sitting tenant rent controls. My landlord has already threatened to evict me at the end of my lease in 2004. If the government goes ahead with its changes, my landlord would be able to increase the rent for my lot by an unregulated amount if it were empty. As a result, if the changes go through, my landlord will have added incentive for trying to evict me at the end of my lease, so I'm asking the government to make sure that the rents remain controlled for units.
The second issue I would like to talk about is the situation where a landlord-owner of a mobile home park disposes of a mobile home because the tenant has allegedly abandoned the home. The discussion paper suggests a 60-day time period before the landlord can dispose of the mobile home. I do not agree with such a short time period before disposal. Many tenants like myself leave the trailer park during the winter months. We are absent for long periods of time. There could possibly be a situation where I could not return to the trailer park on time at the beginning of the season or where I could be absent from the park for a period of time during the normal season. There must be some kind of safeguard in place to make sure that landlords don't blindly make assumptions that if tenants are away for a long time, this means they have abandoned their mobile home. I feel that mobile home tenants are particularly vulnerable because the loss of their home or tenancy can often lead to a loss of their main financial investment. If we lose our homes, we basically lose our financial security.
The third issue I would like to speak about is the protection that tenants currently have from eviction because a landlord decides to close the mobile home park or land-lease property. In my experience, a mobile home park owner may decide to close their park because the park is in terrible shape after years of no maintenance and repair. If this government allows owners of mobile home parks to close their parks, then I think there will be a lot of closures across the province of Ontario. This will leave tenants with no place to move their mobile homes.
In my view, if the government is going to allow a mobile home park owner to close the park, then the government should require the park owner to ensure that the tenant has alternative comparable accommodations. The owner should also have to pay to relocate the tenant.
In conclusion, I would ask this committee and this government to consider the unique nature of mobile home parks. People who live in these parks, like myself, are often seniors and low-income people. Many have put a lot of their life savings into their mobile home. I've had 14 years' experience in a mobile home park and I feel that current laws provide me with adequate protection. If those laws had not been in place, I would have been evicted from my home. If those laws are changed, I am very afraid that I will lose my home.
Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): Thank you for your presentation. You have touched on many issues that we have heard not only today but wherever we've been holding hearings so far.
One of the things we heard was that if rent control is eliminated, you the tenant would have the right to negotiate with the landlord. If you are a senior on a fixed income like yourself, if you are a student with no income whatsoever other than what you may have provided in the summertime, and students are moving on an average every two to three months, if you are on social assistance and the landlord practically says, "Well, you're on social assistance and I don't want you," what would be the position of these people? If you are handicapped or if you belong to a minority group, how would you negotiate? Housing, we've been told, is an essential social or human need. It's not a can of tuna that you can bargain for. How would these people be successful in negotiating with a landlord when the landlord says, "This is my rent on this unit that just became vacant." What would be your position? Would you be able to negotiate a rent with the landlord?
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Mrs Lacey: I don't think so. How could you negotiate if he says, "This is it," and there's nothing to protect you?
Mr Sergio: Exactly. There is nothing left to protect tenants other than what the landlord is going to ask. In other words, you're saying that in the legislation as it is proposed there's nothing to protect those people, the most vulnerable ones. Do you see anything at all that you could recommend to us that we could recommend to the minister to change or include in this legislation?
Mrs Lacey: To change or include? As I said, the way things are now has protected me.
Mr Marchese: Mrs Lacey, I apologize for not being here while you were presenting. I forced myself on the television media because they didn't want a New Democratic perspective so I had to go and say: "But we brought in rent control. Don't you want an NDP perspective?" He couldn't assure me in the end that he would show it, but at least I got an interview. So I apologize for not hearing much of your presentation.
Is it a fair statement to say that about 80% of the people in your position are tenants and that they're at the mercy of the people who own the land, by and large?
Mrs Lacey: Yes. We have this lease until 2004. I don't really know how to explain this without going into the history of the park. The site plan for this park and what we were told when we went in there is that at the end of this term lease, with the owner of the park desperately trying to lease these lots, it would turn into a co-op and that this arrangement would go from owner to owner. Since 1985 the various landlords who have been in there have not tried to lease lots at all; they've just been renting them as an ordinary park. Many of the leaseholders have left, but there are still quite a few who have leases. But the way it is, it'll never go into what we bought into it as.
Mr Marchese: Can I ask you, in your proposal did you mention things that needed to be corrected or were you just talking about this proposal?
Mrs Lacey: I was talking about the maintenance and such, the problems we have had with landlords previously, no maintenance being done, and I had to go to court several times to get things done, to prove that I was under the Landlord and Tenant Act and rent review.
Mr Marchese: I wish you luck.
Mrs Lacey: Thank you.
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): Thank you for your presentation. I have to admit that from a personal perspective I certainly have a great deal of interest in the part of your proposal that deals with mobile home parks. I have a number in my riding, and by and large a number of those are occupied by senior citizens on fixed incomes, so I can appreciate the position you're taking.
I can tell you that the position paper itself does speak to obligations on the part of landlords to address maintenance issues. What we've heard from landlords or owners in these areas is that they're experiencing increased obligations to ensure that there is adequate septic service, adequate water supply, that in fact they don't have the ability to perhaps pay for the improvements that are being contemplated by various government agencies, be it a health unit, Ministry of Health or others.
In the paper we're specifically asking both residents and owners how we might address those because there is this problem across the province as to how we might address the pass-through of those costs. I'm just wondering, have you given any thought to how we might address this issue and how the costs, which in some cases are fairly exorbitant I would have to say, could be reached between residents and property owners themselves?
Mrs Lacey: I don't know really. I can only speak for this park that I'm in. As I said, it was a long-term lease park which we paid money up front and then at one point we each gave $1,000 to upgrade the septic system and from then on it was maintenance that we paid and the maintenance referred to certain areas and it was classed supposedly from an itemized statement that they gave us of their costs.
Mr Smith: The other issue was concern with respect to the 60-day removal proposal in the paper. Both you and I know that you just don't simply pick up a mobile home and move it to another site in one day or two days. That's a difficult task and very unlikely to happen. Have you given any thought as to what the appropriate period should be? If 60 days isn't appropriate, what in your opinion would be the appropriate period?
Mrs Lacey: I would think if it's not used for maybe six months.
Mr Smith: Six months?
Mrs Lacey: Mm-hmm. If you weren't there for a full season, but I do think the landlord should find out why you're not there for the season, for the time.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Lacey. We appreciate your input into our discussions.
EMPRESS GARDENS RETIREMENT RESIDENCE
The Chair: Our next presenter is Shirley Shaw, who's the administrator of Empress Gardens Retirement Residence. Good afternoon. Welcome to our committee. The floor is yours.
Mrs Shirley Shaw: Good afternoon. My name is Shirley Shaw and I'm the administrator of Empress Gardens Retirement Residence. We're located at 131 Charlotte Street and if you look out the doors you can see us. We're the nice, new facility across the street. I would like to speak to you today about the Residents' Rights Act and the Rental Housing Protection Act; we are under the care home section. The proposed tenancy protection act removes some of the restrictions under the current legislation and we welcome these changes.
Empress Gardens Retirement Residence is an 86-bed care facility that has been open for nine years and in your package is a brochure of what we give out to prospective clients. We offer our residents 24-hours-a-day nursing care which includes registered nurses, registered practical nurses and health care aides and other such services, such as meals, snacks, housekeeping, laundry and maintenance, activities, social and spiritual. In clarification, care homes deal with all aspects of daily living whereas an apartment deals only with accommodation.
When a senior comes to look at our retirement home, they're given a tour and all of our services are explained to them. We then do a nursing assessment and if we feel that we can facilitate their care, the resident is given a medical form that their physician fills out prior to their arrival at our facility. A care home information package and a tenancy agreement form are given to them to read and sign at a later date. We explain these in great detail too because they're quite detailed. We encourage potential residents to take this information home, to read it over carefully with their power of attorney or their families.
If they aren't acceptable for our retirement residence, we refer them to continuing care placement coordination services. When seniors or families are looking for a retirement residence they are looking for services, staffing ratios and the added extras that come with a privately owned retirement residence.
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Empress Gardens belongs to the Ontario Residential Care Association, which is a voluntary, non-profit organization representing quality care homes. I'm proud to say that Empress Gardens Retirement Residence has received a three-year standard certificate. I was pleased to be involved as an area captain when the Residents' Rights Act and the Rental Housing Protection Act became legal to contact leaders to share our concerns. In our area I was really pleased with the good feedback that we received from them.
Some of the concerns that I brought forward at these meetings have been addressed in the tenant protection act. In particular, the termination of the Residents' Rights Act, including removal of care homes from the Rental Housing Protection Act. The Residents' Rights Act deals with the physical units and doesn't address the changing needs of our seniors. The Rental Housing Protection Act is legislation that does not focus on residents' needs.
We support the termination of the rent registry which has been ineffective since the implementation. We have split our rent, care and meal services for our rooms to abide by this, and at this point nothing has been done.
We support the need for full information disclosure so that seniors can make informed and appropriate choices when choosing a care home. When a senior comes to our facility, we suggest that they go to other facilities in the area and compare what we have to offer and what they have to offer so that they make a good choice.
We support 24-hour room access when requested by the residents, their families, or power of attorney. The current legislation prohibits this despite the fact that a resident or a physician might request the night checks as their health deteriorates. Also, if a resident has a fall or doesn't show up for a scheduled meal, we at Empress Gardens check on the resident to see if they are fine -- which is part of our services and which is part of the services they choose when they choose Empress Gardens.
When a resident in my facility needs a higher level of care, we assist the families in looking at every option of moving to an additional level of care from the possibility of purchasing extra nursing to the option of moving to a nursing home. I'm concerned if a resident refuses to move and refuses to have the proper safety care that is required. It will become a safety hazard and a moral issue with the family.
Use of the court system for evicting residents who pose a danger to others or themselves, for example, a resident who is cognitively impaired -- this would be a very difficult situation. We are in the caring profession and to have to go through the court system to ensure proper care for our seniors would be contrary to the professional, caring environment that we are trying to promote and encourage at Empress Gardens.
We recommend that the rent and care services increase notices be given to any family member or power of attorney identified in our tenancy agreement. We are legally bound to issue an increase by hand to the registered occupant in the room. Nowhere in the legislation does it address the situation if a resident is physically or cognitively impaired to handle the situation. It is very upsetting to the family, to the resident and to myself and my staff, and it doesn't matter how much you explain the reason why, they don't understand.
The notice period should be reduced from the current 60 days when a senior wishes to move out or passes away. The lengthy notice time is often too much of a burden. This is an undue hardship placed on the residents and their families. I suggest that 30 days is a more sensitive notice time frame for a senior or their family who are handling the move, especially when a death is involved, which has been suggested in the tenant protection legislation.
The care home information package and tenancy agreement should be put into one package to facilitate a more simplified system.
The administrative burden these housing laws have put on care homes takes valuable time and attention away from the delivery of personal service and care to our residents. It does nothing to promote the quality of life for my residents.
I commend this government for looking at and changing this legislation and having these hearings. I would like you to take this a step further and have the Ontario Residential Care Association become the governing body for setting the criteria for retirement and care homes.
I would be pleased to show you our Ontario Residential Care Association certified retirement home, Empress Gardens. Sometimes seeing what a care home has to offer helps you to understand what I've been trying to get across -- that care homes take care of the whole person, spiritually, mentally and physically. They become part of our family.
In summary, there's no need for this legislation in care homes. We are not aware of any problems in this area that would require this legislation. If you feel strongly that some kind of governing body should be done, it should be done by the private sector and, for example, the Ontario Residential Care Association is very involved.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We've got about three and a half minutes per caucus for questions, beginning with Mr Marchese.
Mr Marchese: Thank you, Mrs Shaw. We've had a number of advocates on behalf of people with disabilities and other mental illness problems, and they raised quite a number of questions with respect to what's in this proposal. They say in response to this, "Transfer residents to alternative facilities when the level of care needs change, subject to appropriate protections." Can you give us some examples of what some of those "appropriate protections" might be?
Mrs Shaw: I can talk about my facility, what happens there. When we have a resident who becomes either so cognitively or physically impaired that they need to move on it's difficult because, for one thing, I'm talking about seniors and finding long-term-care beds in the Peterborough area is very hard. We refer them, with the family, to the continuing care placement and then we wait. But if you have a resident who is cognitively impaired, who is wandering out at night wanting to go someplace and you're not a locked unit, we have to look at the safety and care of the residents. So what do we do? The only recourse -- if the families say no, we love your retirement residence, we want the family member to stay there -- is to go to court.
Mr Marchese: I take the position that sometimes there are people in some of these care facilities who need some protection. Now, we can all assume that all of you give the best care and that no one has to really worry about it because you're in the business of caring for people. On the other hand, a lot of advocates worry about what happens to many in terms of how they might be abused or possibly not treated well.
Mrs Shaw: And that's why we're saying that the Ontario Residential Care Association comes in and does evaluations. Their type of evaluation is very intense. They go through your nursing department to make sure you have all your policies and procedures and you abide by the College of Nurses' criteria. So there's a lot of issues that they deal with. They're private sector and we pay to belong there, but when they come in and do an evaluation of us, if we're not up to standards we don't get it.
Mr Marchese: How would we prove -- how would a frail person who is in your care who might feel that there's an abuse ever prove that somehow they've got a problem? Because, as we've been told by many seniors, as they get on in age they become very frightened, and they particularly become frightened of people who care for them. Given the fact that these people would come and visit you and investigate or do whatever, look at problems, how would they ever come to expose a particular individual problem where a senior would be frightened to death to report that problem?
Mrs Shaw: I would hope that their families would be involved. Another scenario is what do we do as caregivers if we find that we don't think the families are giving us enough support because we're concerned about the resident, their family member, and we're saying to them it's a safety issue. This person could go out and get killed wandering the streets because you don't want to pay for extra care or you don't want to place them in another facility because you like this facility. So it works both ways.
Mr Marchese: It sure does.
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Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): Thank you for your presentation. A quick question: On page 3 you say, "We support the termination of the rent registry which has been ineffective since the implementation." I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit and explain that to me.
Mrs Shaw: Yes, I can. I've been in the medical profession for some 22 years and I've been at Empress Gardens for 10 years. We've always been very up front with our seniors. I'm talking about my retirement residence; I can't talk about anybody else's in Peterborough. But when the rent registry and the rent controls came in I had to sit down and learn a whole new system. I had residents who had been there since I'd been at Empress and I had to explain to them that we had to go into their rooms and decide, if they moved out, could we separate -- because in our facility we have a bedroom and living room and four-piece bath, and some of those could be technically classified as two bedrooms. So I had to go into each room in Empress and decide what to do, because it's never been done before. We had to say how much was going to be for the rent portion, how much was going to be for the care services and how much was going to be for the meals. Then, after all that, I had to explain to my seniors and their families what was going on.
We did all that, and nothing's happened, because nothing's been in place. We've got it all done. We haven't registered it because the care home sector is on hold because we changed governments.
Mr Stewart: Thank you, Shirley. Just a couple of questions. I appreciate that there has to be protection on both sides. First of all, I believe that most of the retirement residences are members of the association.
Mrs Shaw: No, they're not.
Mr Stewart: They're not?
Mrs Shaw: No. In fact there are only two in Peterborough, myself and another retirement residence. That's one of the things that should happen, that if you have an association and you have a group of retirement homes, they should all belong so we're all following the same rules.
Mr Stewart: A final question. I don't know whether the committee realizes just how serious this problem is in retirement residences, and I'm going to be maybe a bit overemphatic, but I can tell you that people are going to die who have not signed the necessary forms etc if this legislation is not changed. I might be a little overemphatic, but I don't think I am.
Mrs Shaw: We have 24-hour-a-day care. That doesn't mean we're a locked facility, it doesn't mean there's a nurse in their room constantly, but if you have a resident who has a history of strokes who doesn't come for a meal, if they haven't signed that we can go into their room, what are we supposed to do? Leave them on the floor because the Landlord and Tenant Act says we can't go into their room? Personally, I would take the risk and have them charge me, because I'm a nurse and I feel that's part of my job.
The families at Empress know that. They understand that when you look for a retirement residence, you look for what the service is, you look for the staff, to make sure the staff are going to understand that you want your mother or your father looked after. They know it's a privately owned facility. They know they're paying for the costs, they're paying for the services. Long-term-care facilities are far and few between. We have residents who are waiting, and they're waiting and they're a safety hazard.
It's true, and God forbid it ever happens with our place, but it will be upsetting because we care about our residents. They understand this because I've had meeting after meeting after meeting with them to explain to them about what happened with rent control. I gave them all the information the government said. I explained to them. I told them to write their MPP at the time, Jenny Carter. I said: "Write everybody. This is as much your responsibility, as much your children's responsibility." At some point we're all going to get to that age where we're going to want to be protected.
Mr Curling: Thank you, Mrs Shaw, for your presentation. The approach this government is using is that the status quo is not working so we should throw the baby and the bathwater out and start all over again. I'm concerned about that, while I'm very sympathetic to what you're saying. I agree with what Mr Stewart's saying when it comes to this aspect of it and I also fully agree with you about this aspect. I'm concerned that it is caught up in this legislation. I don't know if this does anything to help -- maybe it impedes it -- to have the proper service.
When you were explaining about the rent registry, I presume you were only explaining from your point of view, not that we should throw out the entire rent registry, regardless of where it serves, so it could serve you. Am I right that when you were speaking, you were only speaking specifically about your area, that the rent registry confuses and impedes in some respect the care you want to give. Am I right in this?
Mrs Shaw: I'm speaking on care homes, yes, just the care homes.
Mr Curling: I don't want to put words in your mouth. You have not looked in any way at the other areas to say the rent registry serves other areas effectively.
Mrs Shaw: I'm talking about care homes in Peterborough. I really can't talk to you about the rent registry in Toronto or other areas, but I know in Peterborough for care homes it isn't. I know for a fact that other retirement homes aren't doing what legally has been put down. I'm not going to say who, but my feeling is that it should be Peterborough retirement and care homes.
Mr Curling: Specifically care homes. You see, this government has entered the negotiation business, that you have to go out and negotiate everything, even your tuna fish. If you want it you must go out to the shops and negotiate for your tuna.
Mrs Shaw: I don't eat tuna fish.
Mr Curling: And you have to negotiate for your home. I'm saying that the rent registry serves as a very effective tool for one to know what they're buying. But in your area, you're saying it doesn't help at all.
Mrs Shaw: They do know what they're buying. When they come into Empress Gardens, they know what they're buying. Even 10 years ago, when someone walked in they were told: "This is the rent. These are your services. This is what you're getting. You're getting three meals a day, two teas, housekeeping, laundry services, nursing, church activation," everything. You're told. If you look in the package, it's part of the package. It tells you everything you are paying.
Mr Curling: Let me tell you one of the shortcomings I found in this package, and you may agree with me: that it seemed to be done in isolation. In other words, I don't see the Ministry of Health playing a role in these New Directions, I don't see the Ministry of Community and Social Services playing a role in these new New Directions. Without having a housing policy that includes all that, you people are caught in the fact of, what role does health play in this? I think more should be done. This discussion paper is a hurried thing. It has to be more comprehensive than it pretends to be.
Would you agree with me that more of that should be done and that we should not rush into changing legislation unless we have some wider --
Mrs Shaw: I think for care homes it should be private and you should have people who know medical and services.
The Chair: Thank you, Mrs Shaw. We do appreciate your input here.
YWCA OF PETERBOROUGH, VICTORIA AND HALIBURTON
The Chair: Our next presenter represents the YWCA of Peterborough, Victoria and Haliburton, Karen Hjort-Jensen and Lynn Zimmer. Good afternoon, and welcome to our committee. The floor is yours.
Ms Karen Hjort-Jensen: Thank you. The YWCA of Peterborough, Victoria and Haliburton offers a continuum of services for women living in or leaving abusive relationships. These services include rural outreach, support groups, shelter and support at two women's shelters, and a 40-unit second-stage housing community for single women and women and their children. In addition, the organization works with women and their families who live in poverty utilizing a community development model. Essentially that means that the community identifies the issues and the solutions, and the process is community-driven. The majority of the clients we serve are on social assistance or are low-income working women. Locally our YWCA has been in the housing business for over 100 years. Two of the stated aims of our organizations are that women and children will be free from abuse and poverty, and that there will be safe, accessible and affordable housing choices for women and their families.
Our presentation to the committee will focus on two perspectives: the impact of this proposed legislation specifically on women choosing to leave abusive relationships; and the impact of this proposed legislation on applicants to our second-stage housing and on the families currently living there.
In the interests of allowing the committee time for questions, we will not be focusing on the broader implications to non-profit housing providers. The YWCA has been involved in discussion of those issues in preparation for a presentation by the Social Housing Contact Group of Peterborough; that group will be appearing before the committee later this afternoon. Nor will we focus on the implications regarding maintenance, the proposed setting up of an administrative tribunal, security of tenure and conversions etc, since we are certain that concerns we have in this regard will be echoed over and over again by individual tenants and by groups working for social justice.
I have to interject here to say that we will be specifically focusing on issues pertaining to women and I find it a little bit disturbing that there's not a single woman on this panel.
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The proposed changes to legislation cannot and must not be looked at in isolation. We believe they must be viewed as only one plank in this government's overall housing policy -- a policy that appears to use a scattergun approach and ignores the complexity of legislative changes that have increasingly impoverished people. This government has already stopped the building of any more affordable, non-profit and cooperative housing, and is systematically destabilizing existing non-profit and cooperative housing providers through ongoing potentially unmanageable budget cuts. This year the government's constraint plan cut $23 million from its non-profit housing program, and although nothing has been officially reported for 1997, indications are that the cuts are going to be far deeper.
The proposed changes must also be contextualized within the political and economic realities of women living in this community. We cannot talk about proposed changes to tenant protection legislation without looking at some local demographic facts. The local press reports that within this community, one in six persons relies on some form of social assistance, and families receiving general welfare assistance or family benefit assistance have 21.6% less to spend on their essential needs, including housing, than they did a year ago. Additionally, Betty Scott at the food bank recently reported that they served 17,000 children, women and men. It is no accident that I list children first, because children in this community are the largest users of the food bank.
Individual landlords and the Peterborough landlord association will no doubt report that there are many vacant apartments in the city, and that is certainly true, especially in the summer months when the Trent and Sir Sandford Fleming students have returned home. However, in checking the rents of these apartments, they are already not affordable to the client population we serve. A single woman on welfare cannot afford $350 for a one-bedroom apartment, let alone $500. A single mom with one child receiving social assistance will get a maximum of $517 for shelter. A recent inquiry identified that the most affordable two-bedroom apartment available from a major landlord was $650, plus heat and hydro. Minimally, one in six people in Peterborough cannot afford these apartments.
Vacancy decontrol will probably not affect the apartments renting at higher end of market, but it will almost certainly affect those apartments at low end of market, and those apartments are the ones that at this time are barely affordable to the clients we serve.
At the beginning of August we were shocked and dismayed to learn that the Peterborough Housing Resource Centre, which assists the most vulnerable in our community secure and maintain housing, has been advised that its provincial funding has been terminated effective August 31.
And finally, let us not forget the young man who was recently found dead in a vacant apartment in Peterborough from which he had been evicted and to which he still had a key. He had nowhere else to live.
The rental situation in this community is already bleak for the most vulnerable people who live here, and the proposed changes to existing legislation will only serve to exacerbate an already potentially dangerous situation.
The Stats Canada 1993 survey indicated that one in six currently married women reported violence at the hands of a current or past marital partner. When women are wrestling with a decision to leave an abusive relationship, invariably they end up having to choose between violence and poverty. For a woman who is courageous enough to make this decision, her most difficult task is to find housing that is safe, accessible and affordable. If she cannot find housing that she can afford and is safe, it is difficult for her to leave. We are deeply concerned about the implications of vacancy deregulation on these women. It has been our experience that they already experience difficulty in locating suitable housing within the private housing market. This proposed legislation will mean that every single woman leaving an abusive partner will be facing a deregulated rental market.
Our comparative statistics for the past two years are identifying an alarming trend. Already it appears that fewer women are taking the step of leaving a relationship and coming into the shelters, whereas the need for crisis intervention and support to women staying in abusive relationships has increased. This tells us that women recognize that, should they decide to leave, the resources available to them are dwindling. Probably the most critical of these resources is safe and affordable housing.
Our community development department advises that an anti-poverty network recently published a report on the effects of deregulation in the United States on women living in violent relationships. This publication was attempting to make links between changes in the United States and the proposed changes in Ontario. The data demonstrated very clearly that in the US the program was ineffective and was actually more expensive, in that there was an increase in the cost of police services, an increase in long-term costs of social service programs for children remaining in violent families and, finally and most alarming, there was an increase in the cost of human lives.
Our other concern regarding women leaving violent relationships is that we believe the proposed changes to legislation increase the potential for discrimination on the basis of number of children, source of income, moral judgements etc. Under the proposed legislation, a landlord will be able to negotiate the rent with an incoming tenant. If the landlord decides that he or she does not care for the prospective tenant, doesn't like the way the children behave or merely believes that women should not leave their partners, this legislation would permit that landlord to quote a rent that is not affordable to her. Subsequently, the rent can always be renegotiated downwards, on the ground that it had not been possible to rent the apartment at the higher rent, with another applicant who may appear more suitable. This discrimination in a deregulated situation would be almost impossible to prove and would render the women and children we serve more and more vulnerable.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission declaration of management policy states, "We observe and uphold the Human Rights Code, 1981," and, more specifically, "The code provides for freedom from harassment or other unwelcome comments and actions in employment, services and accommodation on all of the grounds, including marital status, family status, the receipt of public assistance." There is an obvious contradiction between that declaration and the likely effects of the proposed changes to tenant protection legislation.
The proposal to permit the landlord to increase the rent when a tenant leaves certainly opens the door to harassment of sitting tenants. We are concerned about how this will impact on women who have already experienced abuse within their primary relationships and believe this potential for harassment could lead women into a cycle of changing apartments and, ultimately, homelessness.
This legislation proposes an enforcement unit, but this government's track record of cost-cutting makes it unlikely that this unit will be adequately staffed. The current provincial government, both during and since the election, has frequently made zero tolerance, politically correct statements; however, the systematic dismantling of the tenuous support network of supports that help women leave abusive relationships does not back up this rhetoric.
From a housing point of view, I do not understand how the stated goal of "protecting tenants from unfair or double-digit rent increases, evictions and harassment and to provide strong security of tenure" is going to be achieved through vacancy deregulation, rent negotiation, making eviction of sitting tenants more attractive to landlords seeking rent increases, eliminating the need for municipal approval for demolitions, conversions and major renovations, and the setting up of tribunals. In fact, I would respectfully suggest that these proposed changes will have the exact opposite effect.
The YWCA of Peterborough, Victoria and Haliburton owns and operates Centennial Crescent, a 40-unit, second-stage, non-profit housing community for women, and women and their children. During the first four and half months of this fiscal year, we have received almost as many applications for housing as we did for the entire 1995-96 fiscal year. On the other hand, our turnover rate, which, because we are second-stage housing, has been as high as 45%, was down last year to 15%. More disturbing to us is the increase in calls we've received from women in housing crisis: 98% of our current applicants indicate their source of income as some form of social assistance. With the reduction last October in social assistance benefits, many more of our applicants are indicating lack of affordability, as well as abuse, on their applications.
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I recently received two separate telephone calls from women who are living in tents with their children and have no place to go, nor can they find an apartment they can afford. One of the women indicated that she left her apartment because she was continuously being harassed by her ex-husband. I can't help but wonder how vulnerable she must feel sleeping with her children in a tent. Under the proposed changes to legislation, every single applicant on our list faces an unregulated rental housing market.
Centennial Crescent is 100% rent-geared-to-income and fits the criteria of affordable housing. The tenants at Centennial Crescent could in some ways be considered more fortunate than other tenants. Although last year we lost 100% MCSS funding for the support services attached to the second-stage housing, we have, through organizational resources, been able to work with the tenants from a community development perspective on their identified needs.
They are able to stretch their monthly income through food security programs, including distribution of food donations, the monthly good food box and a community garden. They also have seasonal clothing exchanges to help with the clothing needs of their growing children. But they also recognize that under the proposed changes, if they were to leave Centennial Crescent, there would be a scarcity of affordable housing and they would be plunged into a deregulated housing market.
It precipitates an uncertainty and fear for the future, and some tenants have indicated that although they are content to live at Centennial Crescent, they feel trapped and unable to leave. As an organization which provides second-stage housing to women and children leaving abusive relationships, it has been our hope that Centennial Crescent will be a bridge for women and that they will, at a time that is appropriate for them, move on, thereby making their apartment available to another woman who has made the decision to leave an abusive relationship.
It appears from studying recent trends that the proposed legislation, in concert with changes which impoverish women, could well mean that women will choose to stay indefinitely at Centennial Crescent. That's fine, if that's what they need to do, but within a deregulated rental housing market, where will the other women go who need a safe and affordable place to live? How many women will be forced to stay in situations that could cost them their lives? Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We've got about two minutes per caucus for questions, beginning with Mr Maves.
Mr Maves: Since Mr Wettlaufer has a question, I'm just going to make a quick statement and let him continue. You mentioned at the beginning the lack of women on the committee. Just for your own peace of mind, I'd like to let you know that Ms Marland, Ms Bassett and Ms Ross have all sat on this committee, Ms Ross for a full week. So there has been representation from women from our caucus.
The other thing is that we still do have $1.5 billion in housing subsidies out there for non-profits and $2 billion for housing subsidies through social assistance, so there's still quite a chunk of money out there for it.
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): Thank you for your presentation. I've been researching the problem of abused women for the last number of months. I have to tell you, if my wife and my daughter found out suddenly that I didn't care about women's issues, they would be very concerned, so I would like to assert to you that I am very concerned about women's issues.
Do you not feel that with 50% of the rental units in the province right now not at their legal maximum rents, even though landlords could charge the legal maximum rents, the market forces are helping in that regard and that deregulation won't really have that much impact?
Ms Hjort-Jensen: As I said in the presentation, I don't think it will affect the higher rents. I think those will stabilize. However, I am really concerned that it will affect the low end of market rents. As I stated, we did some research prior to making this presentation, and the apartments that were available in the paper -- we made some calls -- are not affordable to 98% of the applicants on our waiting list; already they're not, so I don't see how taking rent controls off is going to make that situation any better. The reduction in social assistance benefits obviously hasn't changed that situation. Their rents are still affordable despite the fact that one in six people has suffered a 21.6% decrease to the amount of income.
Mr Curling: Your presentation is focusing on the most vulnerable individuals in this situation of change. You have worked at first hand with women who have been abused, as you stated in your presentation. Would you say that this discussion paper, leading to the legislation they intend to do, poses a question that abused women would have to consider all over again: "Which is the greater abuser, the one who is beating me every day at home and psychologically destroying me, or legislation that sends me out there to be subjected to negotiating with a landlord who economically can abuse me or that may isolate me because my income has been depleted in some respect and I would be in a worse position?" Is this the kind of thing you're saying would displace these people or put them in a much more difficult situation to negotiate?
Ms Lynn Zimmer: I think we would agree. I think we would also be very concerned that women who are barely escaping a situation of abuse haven't had much opportunity to develop their negotiating skills. They're not in a strong position to begin with when they're looking for housing, and they haven't had life circumstances that have led them to have any confidence or even much ability to negotiate. They're used to being bullied and they are easily intimidated by situations where somebody has some control over their lives. It's not a good time in their lives for them to come with any kind of strength to a negotiation with a landlord.
Mr Curling: Quite often, the government feels there are individuals in units who have a high income and can pay more and that they should be out. The strategy that has been used by the government is to make it more difficult for individuals, especially the most vulnerable in our society, like those on welfare, by reducing their income by 21.6% so it chases quite a few low-income people out of those units to find some other terrible place to go and free up those.
Mr Marchese: I want to thank you for at least doing what Ms Powell has done in one area, to say that the stated purpose of the government is contradicted by the substance of the report. It does nothing for tenants, as it purports to do, and it does nothing to create more affordable housing or housing in general, because there's nothing in this document that speaks to that.
Ms Powell also says we have an affordability problem. There are vacancy rates, but people can't afford it. She stated that only 3.7% of the total housing stock in the Peterborough area is made up of social housing. She points out that people can't afford to get into that rental accommodation that's at the high end. She also pointed out that even though you have high vacancy rates, the rents haven't gone down, contrary to what people will say happens when you have high vacancy rates.
The third point I want to touch on is the point you made about tenants having a problem if they remain in a system where they say they're going to deregulate the system. It's a problem, because many have stated, "We're sitting ducks."
In the situation of abuse against women, it's a choice between violence or poverty, which is even worse than for some others who may not be in that same position but find themselves trapped. You're not the only ones who have talked about the fact that people will be trapped in situations that are unhappy, unwelcome, and at times violent. I thank you for bringing that to our attention again.
The Chair: Thank you very much, ladies. We do appreciate your input here today.
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SENIOR CITIZENS COUNCIL PETERBOROUGH
The Chair: The next presenter is representing the Senior Citizens Council Peterborough, Jean Burkholder, president. Good afternoon and welcome to our committee. The floor is yours.
Ms Jean Burkholder: Thank you very much. If the Peterborough twins, Harry and Gary, haven't already done so, may I welcome you all to the beautiful part of Ontario known as the Kawarthas.
There is actually very little in this discussion paper, which is misnamed the "tenant protection legislation," New Directions, that we can support. This document, apparently based upon economic studies for Metropolitan Toronto, shows little appreciation for the rest of the province and none for the vast rural areas. It is within this context that we present our brief.
We are the Senior Citizens Council Peterborough, serving county and city. We provide home support services to seniors over the age of 55 and to the physically challenged 45 years plus. This is done through our 10 community care service centres, from the north shore of Rice Lake to our most distant location in Apsley. Through a small, hardworking staff and some 700 caring volunteers, our clients have access to transportation, home maintenance, a variety of meal programs, plus a broad range of other services unique to each community. The everyday close contact means that we are intimately familiar with the many personal problems encountered by our client base.
Of all the services we provide, however, it is through information and referral that we hear most frequently about these situations and are asked to assist. In the last year we had approximately 27,000 such calls. It's unfortunate that this current provincial government has seen fit to cut the funding for that particular service.
Our client base constitutes almost 30% of the global population, county and city. Those 55 plus are estimated by the district health council as 26%, with more than 3% for the physically challenged 45 and up. Yes, we have a large segment of our population aging in place, and this area has become a popular retirement community.
In the Peterborough profile, we find that 39% of residents rent shelter in the city, and 12% in the county are tenants. Among these is a high proportion of seniors, with many from rural communities gravitating to the city simply because this is where the services and the facilities are available.
We are therefore looking at a large and aging population with low fixed incomes. It is our estimate that more than 50% of our client base have incomes substantially below the poverty line. Those 65 plus who receive OAS, GIS and GAINS had a total income of $11,620 last year. Disability pensions are substantially below that figure.
There is hardly an item purchased, goods or services, which has not increased in cost, at least on an annual basis. Most recently this population segment, among the most vulnerable in our society -- these people are not the ones who are able to go out looking for a job -- have had to face an additional cost for their medications: the $2 user fee. All increases must be accommodated within the same meagre individual budget, often requiring a reduction in one or more essential segments, and even resorting to dented cans of tuna becomes somewhat daunting over time. What then is this very vulnerable segment of our society to do in the face of probable increased costs for shelter?
This whole document places an added stress factor upon people who are already very stressed and is very detrimental to their health, which will add greater stress to the health system.
Under rent controls, these now apply to all rental units except those in new buildings. It is proposed that this control would be removed when an apartment becomes vacant. Any prospective new tenant must then negotiate with the landlord before rent control is reapplied to the new amount.
Seniors, and particularly the more elderly, are trusting souls, accustomed to the days when a deal was made on the shake of a hand. They and the physically challenged are very vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. These are the sort of tactics most likely to be employed by small developers or landlords, and particularly in rural and smaller communities where they think they can get away with it.
Vacancy decontrol means the slow death of rent control. While a large number of seniors like to settle down in one place and stay there, what about those who, for a multitude of reasons, must relocate? There is the death of a loved life partner bringing about a reduction in income and inability to cope with larger accommodation. Rural seniors frequently find themselves removed for a variety of reasons from the family home, which is invariably a farm, and look for shelter elsewhere.
The physically challenged in the county have an even more difficult problem: Accessible units are few and far between, to say nothing of the support services required. For instance, the only mode of transportation available in the rural area is our own Caremobile.
It is the tenants in small buildings, in basement apartments or flats of a privately owned home who will be subjected to subtle and not-so-subtle harassment when the landlord thinks a new tenant would pay a higher rent. Tenants in this situation are usually on a verbal month-to-month lease, which is even more insecure. There can be intolerable noise, intermittent lack of hot water or heat, a sudden change in privileges, and on and on and on.
It has been said that one in four tenants moves each year. If that is so, then the present rent control ceiling will have effectively disappeared in about four years. Oddly enough, this is just about the time of the next provincial election. It is important for all members of the panel and all political parties to note that as a group, seniors have consistently exhibited the highest percentage of voters at the polls. We are also like elephants -- we have long memories.
Property standards violations: All tenant complaints and concerns about building maintenance would be dumped on the shoulders of municipal governments as proposed in the discussion paper. Local building inspectors would be trained, but there would be no funding available to hire this additional staff. Municipalities would supposedly be given the opportunity of recovering costs through charges to landlords and possibly tenants.
In our global community, only the city has inspectors mandated to command adherence to local building and associated health standards. We have been informed that there has never been sufficient personnel to carry out these responsibilities, and in the past year more and more responsibilities have been downloaded on to municipalities while at the same time transfer funds have been cut.
In the rural communities and the villages, this whole proposal is nothing but a pipe dream, again emanating from the big city down there, which fails to appreciate the realities of life in the greater part of the province.
Download costs on tenants? Why? If the landlord is at fault and does not maintain the property, then she or he should bear the financial costs. How would you expect a low-income tenant to cope with this cost from a meagre, challenged budget? Rather than try, most vulnerable individuals would simply put up with substandard living conditions.
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We agree that in some instances it would be very appropriate to increase fines for deliberately negligent, and usually absent, landlords. Numbered companies, and we have many in Peterborough in the city, usually headquartered elsewhere, are reported to be the worst offenders.
Under the Landlord and Tenant Act -- we would like to say at this part this is the good news -- for the most part we agree with the proposals under this section. We're concerned, however, about suggestions regarding the enforcement of complaint procedures in the event of evidenced harassment. As previously stated, elderly seniors are more likely to try coping rather than face the situation and the tormenting landlord head-on. They may complain to a service volunteer or to a community service agency such as ours. Usually they are looking for an advocate who will investigate and correct the problem on their behalf.
Until the end of this month, the Housing Resource Centre filled this role with sympathy, understanding and energy. Unfortunately again, the funding has been cut. This agency will disappear and create a very large gap in our community. In the past year alone, the Housing Resource Centre has given assistance to some 79 seniors, most of whom were living in flats or basement apartments in small buildings. Where would you suggest that these elderly tenants now take their problems?
Where will the enforcement unit referred to in your discussion paper be located? Belleville? Kingston? Oshawa? How will tenant applications be fast-tracked? By whom? What is the application procedure? Will it be written in simple language? Will the applicant require the services of an agency such as ours? We have had extensive experience in completing forms for clients. How will that service be funded? Certainly your new access centres are not prepared to undertake this task of filling out forms for clients.
In the dispute resolution system, we see many problems in these suggestions and generally favour remaining with the current autonomous court procedure. Any tribunal that may be organized is very open to patronage appointments. Where would such a body be located? Would it require that the applicant to travel at their own expense? How would they get there via public transportation? Do you know how you get to Belleville from Peterborough? You go to Toronto first. Would the applicant be charged a fee? Why? Is it affordable for low-income, vulnerable tenants?
As to conversion to condominiums, at the present time any conversion of rental housing is protected. Low-income tenants rent because they cannot afford to purchase, whether that is a single family house, a condo or any other type of purchased unit.
In the Peterborough area, it would be ridiculous for any developer to convert a building as suggested in the discussion paper. Compared with many other areas, such as the GTA, for example, condos are generally much more costly here and prospective purchasers, including seniors, who are able to do so tend to look carefully at the very different and lower cost of a detached home in the new developments.
It is the possible conversion of buildings as detailed under the section on care homes that is more likely to occur here. There have already been discussions among certain real estate interests in this regard, and there is a persistent rumour -- let's hope it is only that -- that our largest long-term-care facility is considering some type of conversion or redevelopment.
But none of this gives consideration to the plight of sitting tenants, especially low-income seniors and the physically challenged. What would the provincial government propose with regard to those who cannot afford to purchase and probably need some degree of rental supplement?
Under care homes, I would pose to you that the use of the term "care homes" is confusing and misleading. The general public, and most seniors, think this is a reference to long-term-care facilities. They still tend to call them nursing homes or homes for the aged. Once again this government has chosen to use terminology widely recognized in the community and referring to a quite different entity.
We endorse and support the submission and recommendations of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly which was presented to this panel last week, on August 20. We can see no point in repeating everything they said in that voluminous document.
We are especially concerned about the rights to be given to operators of these facilities. In all instances, agreement must be given by the tenant or the appointed substitute decision-maker. Some of these so-called rights would be like an open sesame for unscrupulous operators, especially in relatively remote rural areas. Not all retirement homes or similar buildings are regulated. Even some registered homes are not adequately inspected. Who will be responsible to see that the rights of the tenant are always first and foremost?
Now we get to something which is related. Public housing tenants: There's no reference in the discussion paper to tenants in OHC units. Although their buildings come under various pieces of current legislation, there is no apparent acknowledgement in the discussion paper of the effects of the proposed changes after these establishments are privatized, this despite the fact that it seems to be generally known that legislation authorizing the privatization of public housing is expected to be tabled in the provincial House this fall. When this occurs and public housing comes under the aegis of private developers or landlords, what will happen to the comfort and security of tenants who are dependent upon RGI accommodation?
In the county and city of Peterborough there are nine buildings administered under the Peterborough Housing Authority. There's a total of 446 seniors in these buildings: 129 in the county and 317 in the city. As stipulated in the qualification criteria, all are on a low fixed income and all are worried about having a roof they can afford over their heads in the future.
The Public Housing Fightback Campaign has provided information and petition forms to the residents' committees in these buildings. The feisty seniors, all of whom by the way are women -- note that, guys; it's women who do it -- in one of the largest buildings in the city have not only completed a form for their building but also obtained one from another building and are, as we speak, gathering a third.
Petitions from OHC tenants in the county are to be forthcoming shortly. All will be forwarded to the Legislature through the appropriate MPP -- yes, I'm going to meet with you guys -- by the Senior Citizens Council Peterborough. In these petitions the signators protest not only the changes proposed in New Directions but also various other actions by the provincial government which have eliminated important tenant services at a time when tenants' rights are being attacked. All this is happening at a time when we should recognize and honour Ontario's father of public housing, social activist Albert Rose, who passed away earlier this month. May his memory live long among those who benefited from his foresight.
We cannot leave without referring to rent supplement units. The local housing authority also administers 355 rent supplement units throughout the county and city, the majority in the city -- 99.9% are in the city. A majority of these are occupied by seniors. What plans does the provincial government have for these tenants?
Gentlemen, I point out to you in this respect that you cannot cut into a pie without destroying the circle.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Burkholder. You have effectively used up your 20 minutes, so unfortunately there's no time for questions, but we do appreciate your input here today.
Just for the information of those who are with us, we have a former NDP member and Minister of Energy, Jenny Carter, in the audience; and we have Peter Adams, a former Liberal member of the provincial government and current MP in the federal government.
Mr Curling: Mr Chairman, just a quick comment about Albert Rose, who served Ontario Housing very well. His passing is regrettable. Thank you for bringing to our attention Mr Rose's death. I'm sorry to hear that because I worked with him when I was the Minister of Housing.
Ms Burkholder: I worked with him when I was on the Metro social planning council and he was the first researcher hired. I also worked with him in Metro Toronto. I have only lived in Peterborough for seven years, but by golly, I support it.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
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GREEK CANADIAN COMMUNITY
The Chair: Our next presenter is Jim Kabitsis, secretary and chair of the Greek Canadian Community. Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to our committee.
Mr Jim Kabitsis: Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I appreciate the time you're giving me to speak a little bit about the situation the way I see it with the Landlord and Tenant Act.
It was the policy of the previous government, in a way, that rents have to be controlled, and I believe they should be, and in order to balance controls we must have public housing. Without public housing there is no counterbalance.
I believe strongly and the Greek community in the area of Simcoe county also believes that rents should not be entirely of the free market. I believe that for the population of our country, especially in the area of Simcoe, where I live, this is very important, because you should know that a lot of people there cannot afford to pay high rents with the income they have. If you take what they receive as allowances from the government, a small minority, maybe 10% or 15% of the population, receives about $900 or $930. Probably you know that. Some others don't receive more than $750. If they pay 50% of that in open market rent, they'll be unable to feed themselves, and this is the truth. There's a large population that makes a large amount of money and they can afford to pay $1,000, $2,000 or $3,000 a month, but they're a very small percentage of the population.
I would like to bring up a number of other matters. I believe there should be controls to oversee rental prices and they should be according to what people are making. The majority of the Canadian population does not make more than $20,000 per year. Some of them don't even make that, $12,000 or $10,000 per year, and if they are charged $1,000 for accommodation, they'll need that to pay it. This is a problem, and the government should take steps to foresee and stop it. Stop any particular operators of big corporations.
There's the small homeowner who will step forward regarding the question of non-payment of rent. The majority of small homeowners have a problem, I believe strongly, and they don't understand the act.
I talked just yesterday to a lawyer in the town of Orillia, where I live, and he told me about a couple that have a house, they are retirees and they decided to rent out the basement apartment. It took them four months -- at the beginning they started by themselves -- to get this person out because he was not paying the rent. It's a problem. Some people don't know how to fill out a number 4 form. All of you are aware of the number 4 form that you use it when you go to court. That form says on top that you have asked the tenant, let's say Mr Jim, for some date; you have to put it 25 days ahead of time.
The majority of people don't understand the whole thing and they go to a lawyer. I don't like to say anything against lawyers, I like lawyers, but the thing is when they go to the lawyer, the lawyer knows all about it and he says, "Okay, we've got to have an appointment." He gets an appointment and it takes a few days. To go to Barrie it takes two hours, and he's going to charge $150.
The situation there is, to my knowledge -- I put it in a small document and I will give it to you if you like -- you must have an entirely different system, not general courts. When you go to the registrar, the registrar will take the procedure and it takes one week, two weeks, depending. If you are by the weekly rates, then you run into a problem; maybe it's easier if you can. But if a gentleman or a homeowner has a small house with one basement apartment and it takes four months to get a person out because he purposely doesn't want to pay, he spent the money, there must be another way, I believe strongly, to evict that particular person.
I'm sorry, sometimes I make mistakes with my English but I think every one of you understands me.
Here's the problem, and not because I disagree with what happened, because some of them were my friends. Prime Minister Bob Rae used to be my friend, and I knew Mr Peterson too. I also know the Speaker of the House, Mr McLean, very well. Regardless, I will say this: They passed a law regarding the motel-hotel industry, and the motel-hotel industry has a problem. If you have somebody by the week, you've got to notify him if you want to evict him.
I think this must be separated. The Innkeepers Act must go in place and the Landlord and Tenant Act must be different because small operators have 10 to 25 or 30 rooms. They're working there as a business. They pay commercial taxes but they also collect GST and PST. The PST, maybe some in the audience don't know, is 5% at the level of the room, to rent a room, and 7% for the GST. That creates a big problem for someone who is refusing, and he knows he has the right.
I will say that is not everybody; not the whole population or all tenants make such a bad situation. There are some good tenants, and I know, because I have some who are very good; they pay up. But where they cannot afford it with the money they receive, there's a problem, and they must be protected.
1430
Also, it has to do with a deposit. You mentioned in your document the deposit. A lot of owners or somebody who rents an apartment must take a small deposit and that deposit must be a deposit and not last month's rent. I believe strongly that what actually happens is, at the end of the three- or four- or one-year period, the tenant will come up and say, "Oh, my rent is paid for this last month; I will leave next month," but the next month comes and he never leaves. Most of the time you have to go to the courts.
I suggest to the committee to review the situation of the courts. It's costly. Special municipal committees should be created with the authority to settle the problem and see how things can be run without spending too much money through the courts. Plus, when you have a problem with the tenant sometimes they bother the next tenant. If you have a small apartment house, 10 apartments, and you have nine or eight nice, good tenants there, they pay the rent even before the due date, but then you get one who comes and drinks all night and everything else, how do you cope with that? That's a big problem.
This is what I have to say and if you'd like any questions, I have time to answer.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. We've got about two and a half minutes per caucus, beginning with Mr Sergio.
Mr Sergio: Mr Kabitsis, thank you for coming down and making a presentation to our committee here. Are you a landlord?
Mr Kabitsis: Yes.
Mr Sergio: Small, medium, big?
Mr Kabitsis: I am, but the bank, the mortgage company, they drive you crazy. That's up to the federal government, of course. The government here, they never set up the amount of what you pay for interest, so we're not going to discuss that. That's Mr Paul Martin.
Mr Sergio: Yes, it takes too much time and I don't have too much time to ask many questions. Just one. You mentioned that we must have protection, and I think this is what we have heard from the majority of presenters who have come in front of our committee. As you know, there are a number of regulations within the existing legislation and statutes which the proposed legislation is willing to remove, if you will. This is the proposal here. Removing some of those protective laws that we have now, how do you feel we, as the government, are going to provide protection for, especially, those people who don't know the legislation as well as you do?
Mr Kabitsis: I don't. I just know a few things.
Mr Sergio: Enough to manage.
Mr Kabitsis: Enough to manage, and also, if you have a problem with the language -- but I will proceed with your question. I said, again, the tenants must have protection regardless of what the landlords are doing, because actually they are in business.
Mr Sergio: Should we protect rent control as it is now, or should we have rent control and streamline the process?
Mr Kabitsis: In some cases there must be some type of removal. There are cases that you can do, but I don't know how the Legislature will proceed with something like that because the Landlord and Tenant Act is general. But the tenant who -- I don't know what the number or the percentage in this province is; probably it would be about 30% or 40%. Actually, out of that number only a small minority are creating a problem. The majority, the others, are family people and if you put up the rents, if that goes to the free market and they have no protection, they will be unable, in my opinion, to pay.
Mr Sergio: As a landlord --
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sergio.
Mr Marchese: Mr Kabitsis, welcome here. I'm a member of the NDP, Bob Rae was our leader, and you got to know Peterson as well. You should get to know --
Mr Kabitsis: I'm not a member of the NDP.
Mr Marchese: I didn't say that you are. I said I was.
Mr Kabitsis: I was a member of John Sewell's --
Mr Marchese: Right. You got to know Mr Peterson. You should also get to know Mr Mike Harris as well. I think it would be good --
Mr Kabitsis: I know Mr Mike. I know him, yes. We met a couple of times and I know a few of the gentlemen. I know the gentleman there, I think.
Mr Marchese: One of the points that you made earlier on is that you need some balance in the system. You pointed out that many people earn very little money in much of our sector of the population and that they need protection. Did I understand you correctly?
Mr Kabitsis: That's true.
Mr Marchese: And that public housing, Ontario Housing or non-profit housing or co-operative housing is something that you supported as something that people need. Is that correct?
Mr Kabitsis: I do.
Mr Marchese: It was important for me to just establish that. Then you went on to talk about some of the problems small landlords have, and I appreciate that because I think that some small landlords have problems, there's no doubt about that, with tenants, and some tenants have problems with some small landlords as well. That's also the case. I'm not sure what there is in this document that deals with some of these small problems, but one of the matters that you raised connected to this is that the courts are too expensive and maybe a different tribunal system that they're suggesting might be the answer. But we've heard a lot of lawyers saying that many of these problems are really solved by the registrar. Most of the cases are solved by the registrar himself or herself. That has not been your experience?
Mr Kabitsis: I have a few times had to evict some tenants, not because I wanted to, but they were not paying. I have to act very fast. I can do it in one day. I know the procedure. I go to the registrar, I register, I pay $48, then I have the hearing and the judgement. Once I have the judgement, I have nothing. I have to go to the server. The server, of course, wants $250 up front -- you've got to pay in order to do that -- and after a week, it takes a month. This procedure is very costly. That's number one.
Number two, sometimes in -- they call them the slums, some of the properties, but even some better properties, either the public properties or they're run by the province of Ontario, they're with tenants that have created a lot of problems. My opinion is that the procedure of the courts must change. It must be faster for that particular reason. Some of the time, most of the time, they would came back with the money and say, "Here's my rent." You have to accept it, this is another case.
Mr Parker: Thank you very much for your presentation today. Actually, I want to pick up on the remarks you were just making on the subject of dispute resolution. That's one of the areas that's of particular interest to me. This committee has been receiving different advice from different people in different communities as we've travelled across the province on this issue. Some people favour the situation as it stands, some people favour a different arrangement. A number of people have favoured the recommendation that's in the proposal, which is to go to a tribunal. I just invite your further comments in this regard. What has your experience been with the court system and what specific improvements do you see that can be made to the system?
Mr Kabitsis: If you act yourself, it's fast, if you do it the next day. Also, it's very tricky. If you do it weekly, then you can proceed in eight days, but if you do it monthly, you've got to take 21 days, according to the act. Well, this is the old act. Somebody gave it to me. Who is from the government here?
Mr Marchese: They're all there.
Mr Kabitsis: Mr McLean, the Speaker, is my friend. He passed it to me a few years ago, but it's not the new one. I forgot to go down on Bay Street to buy one.
Anyway, my experience is that for the average homeowner -- I'm not speaking for the big landlord who has the lawyer who knows how to do it, I'm speaking for the small homeowner who has one or two apartments in his own house that for some reason he rents. Now, he has a problem. The majority of them have to contact a lawyer and that takes a minimum of three months. I say this: The majority of the tenants in this particular case go there and say, "Listen, I will pay you next week." So that's only one week after the first day of the month. The next week, he goes and there is no money there. He gets upset, angry and everything else, and then he contacts a lawyer, and an appointment would take another week. So he already lost a month. Then it takes another 29 days, and then it takes a minimum of two months plus the lawyer's expenses, and it's too expensive to go this direction. You've got to have a different system to speed up the situation.
The Chair: Okay, thank you, sir. Unfortunately, we're going to have to limit your time. Thank you, Mr Kabitsis. We do appreciate your input here this afternoon.
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BOB BABCOCK
The Chair: Our next presenter is Bob Babcock. Good afternoon, Mr Babcock. Welcome to our committee. The floor is yours, sir.
Mr Bob Babcock: Thank you for allowing me to speak to you this afternoon. My name is Bob Babcock. I'm a local property manager. I manage properties here in Peterborough for a variety of landlords and for a variety of financial institutions, everything from apartments, houses, condominiums to rooms in rooming-houses. We manage about 400 rental units in this general area. We also conduct business in Victoria and Haliburton counties.
My specialty is evicting tenants for landlords. I do about two thirds of the evictions that are done here locally. I'm here on behalf of my various clients, I'm here as an executive member of the Peterborough and District Landlord Association and I'm here as a taxpayer.
We have a very difficult situation here in Ontario, with two very different markets when it comes to the rental housing situation. Toronto is one of those markets, with a vacancy rate of eight tenths of 1%; the rest of Ontario is exactly the opposite. Thunder Bay has a vacancy rate of 6.4%; Ottawa, 3.8%; Peterborough is somewhere around 4%, according to CMHC. Here in Peterborough and in most other centres in Ontario, landlords can't find suitable applicants or suitable tenants to fill up their units. They're forced to offer various incentives to prospective tenants, a free TV, three months' rent, and they still can't find suitable people to take over their units.
As I say, CMHC says Peterborough's vacancy rate is around 4%. I submit to you that it's closer to 8%, if not even 10%. The Peterborough and District Landlord Association has done surveys through the years at the same time CMHC does its surveys, that being each April and each October. Our results are always double what CMHC says the vacancy rate is. Now, as you're aware, CMHC only surveys the larger buildings, but here in Ontario 80% of rental buildings contain four or less units. These aren't included in the surveys, and those are the buildings that typically have a higher vacancy rate.
In addition, when CMHC does its phone surveys, most landlords, most rental offices, most superintendents, know better than to say to that telephone person that they have a vacancy, because if you say you have a vacancy, you're on the phone endlessly with questions like, "How much is the rent? Is heat included? Is hydro included? Is parking included, cable TV? How big is it? Is it broadloomed?" etc. The easy way, and you get used to this, is to say, "I have no vacancy."
What I'm submitting to you is that the vacancy rate is not even close to what CMHC says it is. Those are the numbers you're dealing with, of course, when you're looking at rent control, when you're looking at "Do we need more housing, do we need more this, more that?" but the figures aren't accurate.
This government has the option of eliminating rent controls totally -- like the rest of Canada, which has no rent controls -- and basically to let the free enterprise system prevail here. Everywhere but in Toronto it's the time to eliminate rent controls. Toronto, because of the low vacancy rate, is a different market, as I say. Unfortunately, everyone outside Toronto in this province has suffered for years because of rent controls, not only landlords but also tenants. Tenants are suffering because new housing is not being built. We've got the old rental stock of Ontario making up most of what is available out there to rent.
I suggest to this committee and to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing that it study the Thom commission reports. Stuart Thom was commissioned in the early to mid-1980s to study residential tenancies here in Ontario. He was commissioned to do so by the PC government of that time. When he gave his final report in 1987, the Liberal government of that day and Mr Curling as the housing minister basically put it on the shelf and, in my mind, ignored it.
His recommendation was to eliminate rent controls when the vacancy rates allowed it and let the free enterprise system govern the rental market -- very basic capitalism. It appears that this government has chosen to take more of a middle-of-the-road approach. I like most of the proposals in the discussion paper. The concept of a landlord being able to set his own rent when a unit becomes vacant is an excellent idea, but really it's not needed here in Peterborough, because most units in Peterborough are not renting for what the legal maximum rent is in the first place. With the downturn in the economy and the reduction in the values of properties, rents have also decreased. As I mentioned, we manage about 400 rental units. I would suggest on average our rents have decreased $100 a month over the last five-year period of time, following the downturn in values and properties.
Further, the discussion paper allows landlords and tenants to negotiate increases over the guideline amount for capital improvements or new services, again a great idea. It's basic free enterprise.
Third, the discussion paper talks about the concept of rent controls not applying to new construction. Unfortunately that was part of the original rent control system when it came into being in 1975, and a subsequent government brought those post-1976 buildings under rent control. I submit to you that developers and landlords are not going to believe the legislation when it says they're not covered by rent control, because whether it's the PCs or some future government, if rent controls continue, those buildings are going to be under rent control in time as well. Again I suggest to you, let's get out of rent control and let free enterprise happen in this province.
As I mentioned, my specialty is evicting tenants. I want to talk to you about the Landlord and Tenant Act. We need help, big help in the Landlord and Tenant Act. The scales of justice are not balanced there. Over the last 20 years or so every government has made some changes to the Landlord and Tenant Act. I don't recall that one of those changes assisted landlords; every one of them was something new to help out the poor tenants.
When I say "poor tenants" and when I speak of tenants, keep in mind that tenants are my customers. These are the people I'm working for every day in providing them the best housing we can. But it's the government of Ontario that has hurt tenants the worst, by rent controls, by the Landlord and Tenant Act, because they're inhibiting how landlords do business. All these various changes to the Landlord and Tenant Act, with the pet issue and everything else, I submit to you have hurt tenants in the long run.
The discussion paper, in talking about the Landlord and Tenant Act, basically says that sublets will only be allowed to happen with the landlord's permission. That's a wonderful idea. That will return some property rights, hopefully, to landlords. I would suggest to you, though, that if landlords are allowed to withhold their permission to a sublet, with a reasonable cause, you've got to define what the reasonable causes might be. The current policy, as I understand it, of the Human Rights Commission here in Ontario is that a landlord should not be able to turn down any tenant if the tenant has the money.
I suggest to you that reasonable causes must be defined and should be the same considerations that any credit grantor might consider when he's looking at granting credit. Landlords are granting credit when they're looking at a prospective tenant. The considerations that credit grantors look at are known as the three Cs: the credit history of the prospective tenant, the capacity to pay rent of the prospective tenant and the character of the prospective tenant. Again we need the reasonable causes as to what a landlord should consider defined in the legislation.
The proposals in the discussion paper talk about abandonment of property. That's excellent. That's been a major problem for landlords for a lot of years: what to do with the junk that tenants leave behind. I'm glad to see it's finally being addressed.
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The issue of interest on the last month's rent and how and when it should be paid needs some attention. I would suggest to you that if the rent is being increased, that interest on the last month's rent should first be applied towards the last month's rent to bring it current with the rent. Paying 6% interest on the last month's rent is craziness. That might have been appropriate in 1969, when the Landlord and Tenant Act was written, but it's certainly not a good idea today. We're looking at guideline amounts of 2.8% that we're allowed to increase rents by, yet we have to pay tenants 6% interest on the last month's rent. A great investment would be to go out and deposit a whole bunch of money in last month's rent, because you're certainly not going to get 6% interest at a bank. That's got to be tied in with the prime rate. Whether it be the court rate or whatever it may be, that needs attention.
The discussion paper also talks about notice periods for tenancy terminations, that basically they will not change. I suggest to you some changes are necessary there, and one very important one is that a landlord should be allowed to apply to the courts for an order for possession after he has given the 60-day notice for possession. Under the current system, when a landlord gives the 60-day notice he has to wait that two-month period before he can go to the courts. In the situation where a landlord wants to live in the unit himself or if prospective purchasers want to buy the place to live in it themselves, you cause a lot of undue hardship by having to wait that two months to see if the tenant moves before you can take your next step of going to the court. Again I would suggest that's a notice period that should be changed.
The Landlord and Tenant Act says that a tenant cannot withhold rent from a landlord if there's a dispute. Unfortunately they do so. Any new system that's brought into place has to correct this and must fast-track the system.
The discussion paper speaks of improved ability to enforce legal rights. Landlords now have the right to show units or apartments, after a notice of termination has been given, to prospective tenants. I understand that's going to continue under the changes that are made. Unfortunately, if the sitting tenant says, "No, you can't come in here," there's no enforcement tool. You're looking at probably two months before you get a court order to show the unit to prospective tenants. So what we need is some meat, some enforcement tools in any changes that are made.
We need a system that delivers more with less red tape, and one that's quicker to resolve the issues. At this particular point in this region of Ontario the current system is working well unless you have a tenant who knows the system well. If the tenant knows the system, the system is a really slow one. Previous governments of Ontario have made a point of educating tenants on what their legal rights are. Unfortunately they've also taught them how to slow down the system and how to get free rent from landlords. I've dealt with two different tenants in evicting them over the last couple of years. One tenant, over the 18-month period, I figure has paid one month's rent. I've evicted them six times in 18 months. Another couple in their 50s I think has paid three months' rent in the last two years to various landlords. They know how to play the game. They've been taught by the government how to play the game.
There hasn't been a government in my memory that has educated landlords on what their legal rights are. It's looked upon as the landlords being the people with all the money, that they can afford the fancy accountants, they can afford the fancy lawyers, but that's typically not the case. Your average landlord here in Ontario is a couple that has bought a home, a duplex, a fourplex as a retirement project, a retirement income scheme. The way the system has gone, you've taken that retirement package away from them. That's got to be improved upon.
The idea of tribunals being set up here in Ontario mediating landlord and tenant disputes probably can work. If tribunals are implemented, though, it's got to be done in such a way that it doesn't make it a further step along the way; it's got to be part of the process that's a quick process. In the current system the first step along the way after you apply to the courts is to set up a pre-trial. That's a mandatory first step. That's in front of a registrar, and that system works because he's mediating the situation between the landlord and the tenant, and I would suggest 95% of them are solved at that level. Again the key is, what we need is a quick and easy access to the system.
In dealing with appeals, again the system must be quick. I'm currently acting for a landlord from Peterborough who's a retired RCMP officer with a disability. He wanted possession of a lower unit of a duplex which he owns here in Peterborough because his disability does not allow him to climb stairs. We served for him the appropriate 60-day notice in April 1995 to his tenant. We had the pre-trial in July because the tenant didn't move at the end of June. In August 1995 we had the trial. The presiding judge, after hearing all the evidence, awarded us possession of the unit effective September 30, 1995. Shortly thereafter the tenant appealed the decision. He is not following up on the appeal, and if the landlord is lucky he might get into the place this November, well over a year and a half under the current system. Once that appeal goes in now, nothing can happen on it for a year if the appellant takes no further action. It just sits there for a year. That has got to be improved upon.
The discussion paper speaks of what appeals should be based on, whether it be simply a matter of law or a matter of law and fact. I would suggest to you it must be a matter of both law and fact. If you're dealing with simply an issue of law, you're far too restricting. You're taking the opportunity away of simply a landlord or tenant acting on their own if you take the issue of fact out of it, because if they forget to tell the judge an important part, it goes on to an appeal. If you can only deal with a matter of law, you've taken maybe that important fact out of the entire matter.
I would suggest a better way, rather than send it off to Divisional Court as it is now, is to send it back to the Ontario Court (General Division) for a complete rehearing. Whether a tribunal is set up or whether you stick with the current system, that's the way it should be dealt with. Stay out of the Newmarket court. As the nice woman from the senior citizens' council mentioned, who's going to pay for somebody to go down to Newmarket? Who's going to pay for the lawyers involved? You've got to keep it simple.
In summary I suggest to you that rent controls do not make affordable housing. Free enterprise makes affordable housing. My suggestion is, get out of them; get out of rent controls.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Babcock. We appreciate your input here this afternoon.
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VOLUNTEERS AND INFORMATION PETERBOROUGH
The Chair: Our next presenter is Rosemary O'Donnell, manager of Volunteers and Information Peterborough.
Ms Rosemary O'Donnell: Good afternoon, honourable members of the committee. We are very pleased to have been offered an opportunity to provide information to this committee. I trust that the final legislation will reflect the experience of the many people you will hear from.
Volunteers and Information Peterborough is a non-profit agency. We operate a housing help program that has served Peterborough's city and county for the past seven years, and yes, sadly it is scheduled to close its doors tomorrow. I am not here today to discuss the closing of the centre except as it relates to this proposed legislation, although our agency is anxiously awaiting a meeting with you, Mr Stewart, to address this most urgent subject.
We are here instead to share with you our experience from listening to the problems of more than 15,000 landlords and tenants of identifying and trying to help solve these problems. After that many cases a certain wisdom emerges amid all the crisis, conflict and learning.
The board of directors of our agency has attempted to maintain an equilibrium of interest between landlord and tenant. They have attempted to remain unbiased by political or ideological agendas. This has not always been a popular policy, but it has facilitated an ongoing dialogue with both our client types. The interests of both are essential to the successful operation of a housing registry and to the housing market as a whole.
But make no mistake: There is an imbalance in this relationship. It is inherent and so self-evident that there is a risk of its being ignored. Landlords provide a service because it is a business pursuit. Even when it is operated honourably it is still an occupation. For tenants it is a matter of very basic need, sometimes even of life or death. Shelter, a roof over their heads and those of their children, housing is one of those primary needs that must be adequately met before secondary needs such as education and self-improvement can be attempted.
Our landlord clients are people with at most a few units and often just one or two. We served 1,000 of them in the past 12 months. Most of our 3,000 tenant clients are the poor, of which 33% are on social assistance; the others just don't have enough income from their work or their pension to meet their meagre requirements. They are often in a housing crisis. The source of this crisis is things such as domestic abuse, illiteracy, language difficulties, being frail or elderly, being young and unprotected, having a chronic illness or a lifetime physical, developmental or psychiatric disability. But they are faced with a secondary crisis, one of affordability. These are the people of primary concern and in need of protection as new laws are considered. Most landlords and other tenants have the support systems, information and resources to defend themselves.
The first wisdom we have gained from our work that I would like to share with you today is that when faced with unfair practices, many tenants will not put up a fight. They simply do not have the skills, knowledge or means. Faced with an official eviction document that they may not understand, they will just move. They are not empowered to source out free help, nor do they have the strength to face down a more powerful adversary. Many will not know they can call an investigator when they are harassed. They are intimidated by bureaucracy. At least 50% of clients facing unfair eviction just move on. This practice is serious enough now. It will only worsen under a system that provides financial motivation for landlords to displace existing tenants and, I must also add, in a community with no housing help services. Tenants come to us as we have listings of affordable accommodation. Through this initial contact we are able to identify the issues and sometimes solve a problem and sometimes prevent the eviction.
One of the government's stated goals in the discussion paper is to protect tenants from unfair rent increases and evictions without just cause. Vacancy decontrol will allow landlords to raise rents to whatever they wish every time an apartment becomes vacant. Statistics Canada reports that renters with affordability problems are more transient. In the year before the last census, 37% of households with problems affording rent moved. While this is not surprising, it is not difficult to see how vacancy decontrol will intensify the problems of these renters. They will be on a never-ending treadmill from which there is no escape. They will move, because they have an affordability problem, into a system where the sky is the limit for market rents.
For six years we have carefully collected and monitored average rent statistics for this area from vacancies listed on our registry and from those advertised in local papers. I hope you will find time to study appendix A. It clearly demonstrates that low-income tenants in the Peterborough area are already paying from 53% to 78% of their income in rent. The exact amount depends on the size of the unit required. These are people, not statistics. They are moms, dads, sons, daughters, our neighbours and our friends. The units mentioned are not just commodities; they are people's homes.
Average rents in Peterborough are now between 15% and 76% higher than maximum shelter allowances. These are established by social assistance. These rates are just as important for the working poor as their income is often no higher than those on welfare. Rents are not going down in spite of the much touted rise in vacancy rates.
I would also like to point out that much of the current vacancy rate of 3.4% in Peterborough has been created by the economic inability of tenants to maintain their housing. The table in the appendix shows that between January and December 1995 the number of our clients paying more than 50% of their income to rent went from 15% in January of that year to a staggering 47% in November. This was just last year, and yes, it is related to the 22% cuts in social assistance -- real people, real hardship. Of course the vacancy rate went up when they could no longer afford their housing. There are a lot of them in this area.
Tenants are also downsizing to housing that does not meet their needs. Families and singles are living in unsafe and substandard rooming-houses rather than apartments. This creates vacancies. Demand actually may have gone down, but I would suggest that it is based as much on inability to pay as it is on an actual oversupply in the marketplace. While a few renters may have purchased houses, I assure you this is not a choice for most of the tenants we serve.
Under our current rent control system, landlords have the option of lowering their rents to compensate for oversupply. You need only look at what is currently happening in communities such as Peterborough, with existing vacancy rates of over 3%, to see that it will not happen with the removal of rent controls. Our average rents are not any lower than they were when the vacancy rate was 1%. Our average rents are based on a database of more than 1,000 listings in the last year and show little or no change. Recently a local landlord actually advertised in the local paper a giveaway of free used T-shirts with every rental. So much for those huge incentives being offered because of the high vacancy rates in Peterborough. Lower rents would do more to rent units than cleaning out your closet.
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The vacancy decontrol provisions of the proposed legislation will result in higher rents, period. It is inevitable, since landlords are being handed not just the means to do so but the encouragement. Higher rents are the worst thing that could happen to our clients. They already suffer from the ravages of recession, unemployment or underemployment and the 22% cutbacks in social assistance and the loss of supportive services in the community. We believe it is the beginning of a downward spiral for these tenants from which some will never recover. The phrase "kicking them while they're down" comes to mind. Vacancy decontrol certainly will not meet the government's stated goal of protecting tenants from unfair rent increases and evictions without just cause.
Our current system tries to be fair to landlords in allowing capital repairs to be paid for through a rent increase sufficient to pay for the repair. Once it is paid for, it is no longer a part of the maximum rent calculation. It also requires that increases granted for this purpose are spent on repairs. This is accountability, and we say it is not feared by landlords operating fairly.
The second most common complaint we receive from tenants after affordability is disrepair. The discussion paper asserts that most landlords look after their units and that only occasionally do serious problems arise. While assuredly there are many responsible landlords, I would like to assure this committee that on the front lines, we see that these problems are much more frequent than just occasional. The current system needs much improvement if it hopes to ensure tenants have well-maintained and safe homes. I would agree that the process is too lengthy. It also appears to have huge loopholes that those determined to do so can climb through.
In February this year we had a major rooming-house fire downtown that destroyed an old historic building. Twenty-eight tenants were living in this housing of last resort and were therefore rendered homeless following the disaster. The property was somewhat infamous in our city. It changed hands several times. In fact, two years ago we took Richard Franz, the Ministry of Housing policy adviser, on a tour of this same building to show an example of how bad things can get. City property standards officials made many sustained efforts to force this landlord to repair the premises. In the quagmire of the system nothing actually happened.
In early February a tenant contacted us and asked us to come and see the building again. We were appalled by the conditions that confronted us. Remember, it was February. There was no heat in 80% of the rooms. People were sick. They had bug bites. There were roaches and rats. Unused rooms were piled with garbage. Even the superintendent was injured, from a fall through a hole in the floor. The washrooms were beyond description, filthy, with no doors on the showers or toilet stalls and no locks on this room used by both males and females. Please imagine for a moment how degrading and frightening it would be to use this washroom.
Other problems in the building included no hot water, exposed wiring, broken walls, no lighting in long, dark hallways, no smoke alarms, door locks that didn't work and one usable kitchen with only one broken stove for 28 people. There was much, much more: sexual assault; drug pushing; mail, including benefit cheques, intercepted; no security, and therefore lots of people coming and going who had no reason to be there. It was a miracle that there was no loss of life on that cold February night, just one day after the mayor intervened and forced smoke detectors to be installed. While this is a very dramatic example of ongoing disrepair, it is by no means the only one. By the way, these tenants were all paying their rent. If they didn't, they were promptly thrown out on their ear.
We fully support the changes making violations of property standards an offence, and also the expanded search warrant powers.
Informal warnings should not be allowed, as they permit the possibility of pressure on the inspectors for selective application of the standards. We stress the absolute necessity of permitting municipalities to recover the costs of remedial work as taxes. However, any additional requirements of the inspectors, and therefore the municipality, must be accompanied by the financial resources to increase staff, otherwise the process is destined to fail as it becomes backlogged and therefore ignored.
I have included the above example of what can happen when the system lacks the power or resources to ensure the safety of tenants; and the ineffectiveness of a system permitting appeals and delays to go on indefinitely as conditions in a building worsen.
In conclusion, laws governing this landlord and tenant relationship, especially one entitled "tenant protection," must address the inherent need for protection of the most vulnerable, otherwise tenant protection is just rhetoric. Tenants must rent if they are to have shelter. This housing must be decent and secure. The law must make it so.
I cannot believe this government wishes to increase the suffering of the poor and the disabled. Providing incentives for landlords to get rid of tenants, taking away legislation that protects them and closing services that assist them will have long-term social costs for all Ontarians. I thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you. There's about a minute left, so there's no effective time for questioning. Did you have a final comment you wanted to make?
Ms O'Donnell: Just that I'm glad there's no more time for questions.
PETERBOROUGH COMMUNITY LEGAL CENTRE
The Chair: Our next presenter is Martha Macfie from the Peterborough Community Legal Centre. The floor is yours.
Ms Martha Macfie: I'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity to present a very brief submission from the legal centre. I'm aware that the Legal Clinics' Housing Issues Committee in Toronto has presented a lengthy brief to the committee, and I would like to say that the legal centre of course endorses that brief wholeheartedly.
The Peterborough Community Legal Centre is one of a number of legal centres across the province. It, like those other legal centres, receives its funding from the Ontario legal aid plan. The legal centre is governed by a volunteer board of directors.
The centre's two lawyers provide free legal advice and representation to low-income residents of Peterborough county in key areas of the law that are most relevant to low-income people. Not surprisingly, tenant protection legislation is one of those very key areas.
During the first 10 month of 1996, the centre has provided legal advice and representation to 1,133 tenants in Peterborough county, and the number of tenants receiving assistance from the legal centre has been steadily and dramatically increasing since the centre opened in early 1989. Since 1993, the centre has provided a duty counsel program to tenants on the first return date of their court application.
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In the central east region we have a rather unique system: landlord-tenant court applications. This is not a system that is in place elsewhere in the province. When a landlord or a tenant commences a court application, the first return date is before a local registrar who is empowered to pre-try the application. We attend as duty counsel on those pre-trial dates and provide assistance to tenants. In the first 10 months of 1996, we've provided duty counsel service to 99 tenants.
As Mr Babcock, who appeared earlier before the committee, indicated, by his calculations approximately 95% of the applications are resolved at that point in time. I had an opportunity to speak to Mr Babcock after his presentation and I asked him how many of his tenants whom he serves with court papers actually appear to dispute the application. He indicated that it is less than 30%. So I would put it to this committee that less than 30% of tenants attend to dispute, leaving 70% of tenants who do not dispute evictions by their landlords. Of that 30%, 95% of those applications are resolved at that pre-trial stage. This is not a cumbersome process by any stretch of the imagination.
In addition to the services that I've just indicated, the legal centre has also represented tenants on novel or test cases. For example, the centre represented several developmentally handicapped residents of a retirement home who were being summarily evicted by the owner of the home. By "summarily evicted" I don't mean the summary procedure of the Landlord and Tenant Act, I mean a letter telling those tenants to be out in very short order.
The legal centre commenced a charter challenge to the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Act that excluded the protection of the act to our clients and the government of the day passed legislation to extend the protection of the act to our clients before that application could be heard. So I was sort of interested to hear the submission by the Empress Gardens earlier this afternoon, which alleged that there are no problems with retirement homes in Peterborough and that there is no need for the residents' rights legislation. It was a case in Peterborough that brought this whole issue to the attention of the government of the day and it was that case that was the impetus for the government to actually amend the legislation and to afford tenants in care homes with some protections.
While I am on the topic of the Empress Gardens presentation, I would like to point out to the committee that I think it was clearly acknowledged by the presenter that there are problem with local retirement homes and care homes. She acknowledged that only a few of those homes are members of the association, so industry self-regulation obviously is not going to work with respect to care homes.
In another test case that is currently ongoing, the legal centre is representing tenants who are challenging the constitutionality of the local utility commission's utility deposit policy which requires exorbitant deposits from tenants.
I'd like to provide the committee with some information about tenants in Peterborough county. I've set that information out in my written submission. I think the first important point to make is that there is a relatively low tenant population in Peterborough. By "relatively" I mean compared to Toronto. That's not too surprising. Statistics Canada census data reveal that the tenant population in the city of Peterborough has very specific characteristics. For example, 39% of disabled persons in the city are tenants, and that's as compared to only 32% of non-disabled individuals. Thirty-six per cent of women 65 years of age and older are tenants, in comparison to only 25% of men in the same category. Of the native population, 66% are tenants, as opposed to 33% of the general population. The next one is an astounding statistic: Sixty-four per cent of female-led, lone-parent families are tenants as compared to only 20% of husband-wife-led families with children.
Sixty-one per cent of unattached persons in the city of Peterborough are tenants. Thirty-seven per cent of tenants in the city have incomes below the poverty line. This is in comparison to homeowners where it's only an 8% poverty level. By below the poverty line, I'm referring to the Statistics Canada poverty line of low-income cutoffs. Over 62% of the residents of the city of Peterborough who receive social assistance are tenants.
We can get a very clear picture of who tenants are. Tenants are members of our society who historically have suffered from discrimination disadvantage: women, children, the disabled, natives and so on. Actually, just to add to that point, it's unfortunate that we don't have up-to-date statistics because I am absolutely confident that those statistics I've just given you would be even more shocking in the wake of the 21.6% cuts that this government has inflicted on recipients of social assistance.
CMHC figures show that the city of Peterborough has a vacancy rate of 3.4%, and that's been talked about a fair bit here today. Contrary to what one might expect, this relatively high vacancy rate has not resulted in lower rents for low-income tenants in the city. The legal centre has direct experience in this. This has not resulted in lower rents for low-income tenants in the city. Rental rates continue to rise and the centre has been completely unsuccessful when it has tried to negotiate lower rents with landlords, despite the fact that many of these same landlords have high vacancy rates in their buildings. The typical response by landlords in Peterborough to the rate cuts in October 1995 has been to require guarantors or co-signers on leases, not to reduce rents.
I understand, in addition to the remarks I've made about the lack of affordable housing and the fact that rents are not declining in the face of the relatively high vacancy rates, there remains a long waiting list with our local housing authority. I believe it is approximately 350 people waiting for housing with the housing authority. I understand that actually fewer than 75 tenants obtained housing with the housing authority in 1995. So for those tenants who aren't in emergency or crisis situations, who aren't considered urgent situations and can't build up the points, those tenants are waiting up to four years to get into the housing authority. This isn't a glut of rental accommodation in Peterborough.
In a ministry survey, the percentage of income spent on housing among users of housing help centres in the Peterborough area showed that an unacceptably high percentage of a tenant's income is currently used for rent. This was already referred to by the presenter for the housing resource centre and I've simply provided the committee with the statistics that were provided by the housing resource centre.
Our own statistics show that Peterborough county households that receive general welfare assistance spent 73% of their total income on rent -- 73%. Of those households, during the past year, 86% have run out of money to buy food to make a meal and 54% have gone without food for a day or more because of insufficient money to buy food. These households that have encountered these problems, that have run out of money, identify high housing costs, high rents, as being one of the main reasons for them having insufficient income.
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Ontario's present government has already taken steps that have reduced or will reduce the supply of affordable housing in Peterborough county. It has cancelled funding for private non-profit housing and, through the Land Use Planning and Protection Act, eliminated the ability for some homeowners to create accessory apartments. It has also reduced the supports necessary to tenants who are seeking affordable housing by eliminating, at the end of this month, funding for the Housing Resource Centre, which has been the only housing help agency in the Peterborough area.
The proposals contained in the government's discussion paper will further reduce affordable housing by eliminating the Rental Housing Protection Act controls on the conversion of residential rental properties. In Peterborough county, these conversions will be in the form of closure of mobile home park communities. This committee has already heard from mobile home park tenants today.
At the same time that the government has reduced the supply of affordable housing, it has caused an increased demand for such housing. We've already heard about the 21.6% cut to welfare assistance and family benefits allowances in October 1995. Since those cuts, the number of tenants forced to move because they could no longer afford their rent has increased steeply. The number of economic evictions -- and by that we mean evictions by landlords for the sole reason that the tenant can no longer afford the rent -- has increased by 62% in the first 10 months following the rate cuts.
Unfortunately, a high vacancy rate does not assure lower, more affordable rents. As noted above, rents in Peterborough continue to climb, even while rental costs consume an unacceptable percentage of tenants' incomes.
The government discussion paper proposes that unit rent controls be removed. The government states that the removal of unit rent controls will create an incentive for landlords to build new residential rental units and that this in turn will lead to more rental housing generally. The government has failed to provide even one study that depicts how this process will work. Furthermore, the report on which the government appears to be relying -- and that's the Lampert report -- provides nothing more than bald assertions.
The Peterborough experience clearly shows that relatively high availability of rental housing does not translate into affordable housing. A submission that was presented to this committee by David Hulchanksi -- it was called Rent De-Control in Ontario -- I would submit, provides illumination of the Peterborough phenomena of relatively high vacancy rates but minimal low-rental housing. The legal centre accordingly adopts the findings in the Hulchanksi submissions to this committee.
In the discussion paper, the government implicitly acknowledges that without unit rent controls landlords will have increased incentive for evicting tenants. The centre is certain that harassment and coercion of tenants will increase and is concerned, given the particularly vulnerable nature of the tenant population in Peterborough which I set out earlier. Women, children, the disabled, natives, recipients of social assistance and the poor will be the victims if this government proceeds with the elimination of unit rent controls.
Tactics currently employed by unscrupulous landlords -- of which there are a few in Peterborough; there are some good landlords, but unfortunately there are some bad landlords -- that we predict will increase with the removal of unit rent controls include deliberate non-repair, intimidation and harassment and illegal lockouts. The proposal in the discussion paper for an anti-harassment enforcement unit, greater municipal powers and higher fines will, in our experience, be largely ineffective.
The mechanisms that the discussion paper sets out through which tenants are to secure and enforce their legal rights are generally not available to tenants in rural and small-town settings like Peterborough, the city of Peterborough and Peterborough county. Tenants generally have a small rental market to look to and very few landlords to look to. Should a tenant attempt any of the enforcement mechanisms proposed in the discussion paper, they could be blacklisted by landlords in Peterborough county. With a relatively small number of units available to choose from and very few landlords -- some landlords have a large number of units -- if a tenant is blacklisted in a rural community, then they suffer extreme hardship. They're in big trouble.
With respect to laying charges against landlords, very few such charges have been laid successfully in Peterborough by self-representing tenants. Those charges that have been successfully laid and prosecuted generally result in minimal fines. At the end of the day, the tenant has received no compensation from the landlord, and the landlord receives merely a slap on the wrist.
In terms of the proposal for greater municipal powers to curtail abuses by landlords, because the government appears to implicitly accept that there will be greater abuses by landlords under the elimination of rent controls, the centre has a great deal of experience with the failure of the city of Peterborough to pursue landlords who fail to repair and maintain their rental units. It is extremely difficult for a tenant to obtain an inspection of their unit. If an inspection is completed, it generally results in an informal conversation between the property standards inspector and the landlord. In extreme situations the landlord is sent a letter from the city, and in only very, very extreme cases the landlord receives a notice from the city. There have been very few orders issued by the city of Peterborough against local landlords, despite the fact that the city has an old, decaying, unmaintained rental housing stock. In the very rare instances where orders are issued, they are frequently not enforced.
In our view, lack of interest by municipal officials is only one reason, though, for the failure of property standards enforcement. Lack of funding also plays a major role. It is simply not reasonable for this government to expect municipalities to take on a larger role in this area following upon recent reductions in transfer payments from the province to the municipalities.
In one extreme instance where an unenforced order was in place, a tenant received a community startup benefit to cover a last month's rent deposit, even though the welfare case worker had been informed by the property standards department that there was an outstanding order on the rental property and that the premises were unsafe. The tenant learned subsequently that his worker had known of the outstanding order at the time the community startup benefit was issued.
The discussion paper provides almost no details about how the enforcement unit will conduct investigations and initiate prosecutions. It does not provide details as to what sort of relief will be possible to the tenant, in what form the relief will be pursued and whether the tenant would complete the prosecution or simply initiate it.
In conclusion, we have very, very grave concerns that the proposed legislation has little to do with protecting tenants. In key areas, the proposals are very vague. We demand that there be further extensive public hearings respecting the bill once, and if, it is drafted.
The Chair: There's only about a minute or so left of your time, so it's not an effective time for any questions. Did you have any final statement you wanted to make?
Ms Macfie: Nothing.
The Chair: Okay. Thank you very much.
UNITED CITIZENS ORGANIZATION
The Chair: Our next presenters represent the United Citizens Organization, Ray Peters, the president, and John Taylor, the vice-president.
Mr Ray Peters: So that there is no doubt of our general position, we will make it clear at the outset that we are demanding that the government abandon its proposal to end rent control. The reason for the proposal is obviously that the government wants rents to go up. Although it is called "tenant protection," tenants and the general public have not been fooled. The claim of protection smacks of the evil protection rackets of past history and this proposal will result in similar hardships for the tenant population of approximately 3.5 million Ontario citizens.
Our United Citizens Organization has existed for 36 years and is the anti-poverty organization for this area. In 1995, we provided 2,291 occasions of service to 352 families or individuals, and these figures do not include the many hundreds of individuals and families who participated in our activities during that year.
For the Premier of Ontario to state that no tenant will have their rent go up any more under the government's proposed scheme than under the current system in June 1996 amounts to a shell game or confidence game of major proportions.
We view the proposals as the end of rent control, less repairs and maintenance, deteriorating relations between landlords and tenants and, ultimately, less affordable rental accommodation. In plain English, Ontario would be embarking from civilized human behaviour into the law of the jungle, and let the devil catch the hindmost.
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The statement of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing says it all when he said his knowledge of housing fits on the head of a pin and leaves room for the Lord's Prayer. The Toronto Star also reported what he said at a closed meeting of the landlords' lobby, which calls itself the Fair Rental Policy Organization. It quoted him as telling them, "My government is here to help you."
The government proposal means that when a new tenant moves into an apartment, landlords will be able to raise the rent to whatever they can get away with. The government's own study, the Lampert report, estimated that 25% of tenants move every year. It also estimated that over a five-year period about 70% of tenants move at least once. Within five years, the majority of apartments and rental accommodation will have had their rents decontrolled. These figures show what will happen to Ontario tenants. Also, the fight back of Ontario tenants against the class warfare against them will be a mighty one, since there are 3.5 million of them.
Higher rents affect human beings, not just the apartment. Those of us who are senior citizens have long memories, and all of us remember the horrible things that happened in Peterborough without effective rent control.
Let us use the figure of our present Rent Control Act of 2.8%, whereby the landlord can also apply for an extra 3% above that figure. This means a total of 5.8% may be obtained, which is far above the increases in wages or pensions of most tenants at the present time. Contrast this with the inhuman reduction of 21.6% of social assistance payments, and you have a pretty ugly picture of what is presently happening in Ontario. Decontrolled rents will bring the American nightmare to Ontario.
Let us for a moment recall what happened to rent controls after the end of the Second World War. By the late 1950s, most areas in Ontario had eliminated rent controls under the theory that supply and demand would make for fairness in rental costs. By the time the 1970s had arrived, the injustices, unfair rents, the freezing rooms, the cramped living quarters, the deaths of tenants, as well as the assaults on tenants and the lack of maintenance forced the Conservative government to introduce rent controls as an effective weapon for tenants to enforce their rights to accommodation, privacy, repairs etc.
Now a provincial government proposes to go back to those earlier days. No way will the people of Peterborough allow this to happen without a fight. We realize it would be an unfair fight in the sense that landlords in general have so many resources at their command. But 3.5 million tenants, their friends, relatives, neighbours, children and grandchildren will ultimately win at the ballot box, if not before.
The social justice beliefs of Ontario citizens will triumph, along with their allies, simply because so many landlords will take advantage of any lessening of controls.
Increases under the proposed legislation for capital repairs of up to 4% above the guideline and no limit as to how high rent increases can be for property taxes and utilities can mean increases up to an amount of 8% to 10% are possible. Presently, when a landlord applies for an above-guideline increase based on capital repairs, he must show that more than 2% has been spent on capital repairs, as 2% of the present 2.8% guideline is supposed to be for maintenance and capital repair work. We have also heard that the government is even considering that tenants should pay for any landlord's decision to make luxury or unnecessary renovations.
Tenants will not, in the future, be able to apply for a rent decrease due to a reduction in the cost of heat, hydro or water. For example, a landlord could get an increase above the guideline in an extremely cold winter because of higher heating costs. Tenants, however, would not be able to apply for a rent reduction the following year, when the landlord's heating costs go down to normal levels.
The government has admitted their proposal will be an incentive to some landlords to harass their tenants. They are proposing an anti-harassment unit as a possible deterrent to landlords to deal with the harassment the proposal creates. What kind of nonsense is this that a new bureaucracy will be created? Let us again use plain talk to illustrate what will happen. A tenant who experiences this problem will fill out some type of form to try and force a landlord to let them stay in an apartment where their landlord wants to get rid of them so they can increase their rents.
Such a system is doomed to failure because many tenants are economically vulnerable and will immediately try and find other accommodation, and the exploiting landlords will have a field day. We realize some people will say this will not happen, but they must have little knowledge of the lengths some landlords will go to in order to increase rents.
Landlords in general have said they want to increase rents. If the government embarks on this rent decontrol scheme it will be seen as representing landlords, not tenants, but guess who has the most votes? Because of the lack of controls, the government does not see the necessity of keeping a rent registry. The rent registry has been one of the most effective ways for tenants to find out what is the legal rent on an apartment and, more importantly, what kinds of services are included in the rent. The matter of utility services such as electricity and water, as well as parking, are vital information that a tenant needs to know whether they are included in the rent.
It is true that once tenants move into an accommodation, they will be covered by the rent control guideline, but that is like locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen. The theft will have already occurred and the landlord will have received the government's blessing and a financial windfall for his stealing from the new tenant. What a great public relations windfall this will be for the government when other tenants, the news media and citizens generally expose this type of corruption.
It is realized that the government has trotted out that old Trojan Horse of possibly more rental housing resulting from this bonanza to landlords. Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat the historical mistakes of previous governments. That was the old chestnut which was trotted out in the late 1950s to justify destroying rent controls. The Conservative government of the 1970s realized the colossal error they had made and introduced rent controls.
It is argued that this is mainly a problem for larger cities than Peterborough, but this is not the case. We have a very large and vulnerable tenant population in Peterborough. A large number of Peterborough tenants pay a very high percentage of their income for rent even now and cannot afford to pay more rent.
I have met with a large number of tenants in recent weeks, particularly the elderly, many of whom voted Conservative in the last election. They are frightened by what may happen to them. They have good reason to be afraid.
It should also be kept in mind that the relatively high cost of developing and building rental housing in most cities will mean that the private sector is still not likely to build rental housing on a large scale.
It is most unfair that the government proposal means the weapon of a rent freeze would be taken away due to property standards violations. This use of the rent freeze has been effective in large municipalities because it means a significant financial penalty each and every month that repairs are not completed.
Under this new government proposal, landlords will be able to apply for and receive above-guideline proposals even if there are standing property standards violations. While the government theory is that they will give additional powers to municipal property standards inspectors and will increase the maximum fines for property standards violations, there is a major problem. In many municipalities there is very little money put into property standards inspectors.
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While there has been an improvement in the city of Peterborough on property standards enforcement in recent years, that has not always been the case. We can all remember large headlines in the local newspaper, the Peterborough Examiner, about the lack of enforcement against landlords because there was insufficient staff to enforce the rules. The funding cuts to Peterborough are having a drastic effect on the city, and whether Peterborough can keep up its present enforcement procedures is a major question.
In general across the province, even an increase in maximum fines is unlikely to help much in maintenance because most courts only order small fines of a few hundred dollars to landlords who violate property standards.
The minister says he wants to make it easier to evict tenants. However, this causes great uncertainty among tenants when it is considered that landlord are going to receive a financial incentive to evict tenants so they can increase rents.
In conclusion, we simply state that the government should not proceed with its proposals which would end rent controls for the three and a half million tenants.
Mr Marchese: I thank you both for the very good presentation you've made and the concerns you state about what will happen to many tenants. I had several questions I wanted to ask the Peterborough Community Legal Centre and the volunteer information group. I'll ask you the same questions that I would have asked the others.
Mr Babcock described how this proposal really helps them out and then said it doesn't go far enough, and it should. He made a good case for why this proposal really isn't helping tenants but rather the landlords. He also made the point that rates are going down as a result of high vacancy rates, and three community groups showed statistical information that contradicts that very clearly. It's interesting how we can use information depending on who's come here. He also said this proposal restores balance for the landlord because it's been tipped too much for the tenant. Can you comment on that?
Mr Peters: I sure can. The facts of the matter are that the people in Peterborough, particularly low-income people, are paying far more in rent than they ever possibly should be paying. I don't need to go into the details. They're too horrible to even refer to.
I go back to the other question about the process being so slow and so on. There may be cases where it is, but in fact the system can work if it's done properly.
Mr Stewart: Thank you for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. We've been in a number of places in Ontario where it is shown that the vacancy rate has gone up. In all cases they have not raised the rent near to the maximum they could, the 2%. In fact, in Peterborough we're just looking at last year, and the rents have come down. We feel that the market-driven might have an effect on this.
In all of your presentation you certainly haven't made any comment about the tenant's obligation or the tenant's accountability. Are you suggesting there should not be a level playing field? What happens to a landlord when they ransack his apartment or he has had dog faeces in it etc? Should there not be accountability on both sides if we're going to do some type of reform in this proposed legislation?
Mr John Taylor: Of course there should be, Mr Stewart, and I think in most cases there is. I'm not aware of landlords being refused the right to evict tenants under the circumstances that you mentioned. Do you have specific cases that you're aware of?
Mr Stewart: We saw a number of them in the paper, I read in the local Examiner of people who have had that problem, but we've heard as well in many communities that evicting those types of tenants is a long-drawn-out costly procedure. I guess those are dollars out of all of us taxpayers, which is what concerns me.
Mr Taylor: My view about that is that probably the procedure varies from one community to another. I understand in some communities it doesn't take a great length of time for this to happen.
Mr Stewart: Of course the courts are the courts.
Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): I thank you and the previous group for the presentations. There are a couple of points that I think you effectively made: (1) This is not just a Toronto problem -- there have been landlords trying to believe that this is driven by conditions in Toronto; and (2) the base conditions for tenants, and I'm going to ask you for a comment on this, are very poor. There is already something of a crisis out there for affordability, for the security of tenants.
I refer to some data the member opposite obviously didn't include in his summary: Despite the fact that vacancies went up, rental accommodation did not come down in price between 1990 and 1993, and it has tightened up in recent years; we have had some very small decreases -- 0.4%, 0.2% -- in one- and two-bedrooms, but bachelors have gone up 8% in the last years as more and more people have been squeezed into smaller accommodation -- 8% increases, and that's under a protected system.
Could you characterize for us what you think the base conditions are? We keep hearing from the government side some sense that right now conditions are sort of in favour of tenants and not fair to landlords.
Mr Peters: People who are in the housing field in terms of social agencies, people who have to work for government departments, people who are involved in tenant organizations, anti-poverty organizations and so on see a completely opposite picture. The picture we see is generally -- there are exceptions, of course, to everything -- that people do not have any sort of field day whatsoever. They have a very hard time with the question of affordability, the question of availability of housing and the question of problems with landlords. All those things are major problems.
I don't want to harp on it, but if the people at this table knew of the hardships that people are suffering from firsthand experience, they would never embark upon this type of thing. I say that because I have the experience with it. I experience it every week. I go to people's homes. They phone my home night and day with their problems. You can find out in any community in Ontario that the same type of thing goes on, and to make it worse is just unthinkable.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen. We appreciate your input this afternoon. We are now recessed until 5 o'clock.
The committee recessed from 1558 to 1705.
PETERBOROUGH AND DISTRICT HOME BUILDERS ASSOCIATION
The Chair: Our first presenters this afternoon are Maureen Shaw and Murray Davenport from the Peterborough and District Home Builders Association. Good afternoon and welcome. Should you allow time in your 20 minutes for any questions, they would begin with the government. The floor is yours.
Mr Murray Davenport: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the standing committee on general government, with particular emphasis on the proposed rent control legislation. My name is Murray Davenport and I am the past president of the Peterborough and District Home Builders Association. With me today is Peterborough and District Home Builders Association staff member Maureen Shaw, the executive director. We wish to raise a few points related to the current rental accommodation as they relate to the city of Peterborough and the local district.
The Peterborough and District Home Builders Association represents over 70 member companies involved in the Peterborough region's residential construction industry. Our membership is made up of all disciplines involved in housing construction: builders, land developers, renovators, subtrades, suppliers, mortgage lenders, land surveyors, engineers, planners and lawyers.
We're pleased that the government of the day has recognized the need to overhaul the rent control system. The introduction of rent controls in 1975 and the tightening of rental legislation have severely diminished the incentive for builders to expand the stock of rental housing in the city of Peterborough.
The last privately owned rental accommodation constructed in the city of Peterborough was built in 1991. Some of my contractors advise me that it might be the year 1990.
Marketplace rent control is the best rent control mechanism, in our view. The availability of rental accommodation on the market is currently dictating the cost of renting apartment space. The current vacancy rate provides sufficient choice for the tenant, which has driven the price of rental accommodation downwards, with no increase in the rental fee paid in the last three years even though rent control legislation permitted that increase.
The balance between the rights of the landlord versus the rights of the tenant has been lost in favour of tenant rights brought on by the successive legislative changes implemented by left-leaning governments led by William Davis, David Peterson and Robert Rae. Points related to that: The cost of upgrading and renovating an apartment unit must be recovered in rent increases to encourage property owners to provide quality living conditions for their tenants. Landlords cannot easily evict tenants from apartments without a large expense. Tenants forced to leave their apartment under the duress of an eviction notice will often trash the apartment, causing the landlord thousands of dollars' damage. The landlord must repair this damage before he can rent that space to new tenants. The cost of the repair cannot easily be recovered from the tenant without further legal expense.
Effective legislation must balance the rights of the landlord with the rights of the tenant to protect private property against vandalism. Tenants must respect the fact that they are renting in a privately owned building and be encouraged to demonstrate pride in their home.
The pay-direct system of making monthly rental payments on behalf of welfare recipients is seen by the industry as being much more effective than the current method of paying rents under the honour system. Any person who is generally short of cash to meet their financial obligation in today's society can be easily tempted to use the rent money to purchase goods and services rather than make their monthly rental payments.
The issues and concerns that cause the need for rent controls appear to originate in the Toronto region, in our view. Perhaps the legislation would be more effective if new legislation were created to address the issues created in that region only; leave the smaller population areas of the province external to Metropolitan Toronto out of the legislation. In our view, the government should fix the Toronto problem but leave the outer regions alone.
Cuts to the non-profit housing program last year were long overdue. This provincial government recognizes that the private sector can build housing much more efficiently than the government can and wants the residential construction industry to return to building rental apartment buildings. The construction of non-profit housing projects was reducing the demand for privately owned rental accommodation.
Our former minister of non-profit housing, Ms Gigantes, stated that 15% of all housing in Ontario was receiving subsidized housing. That translates into one subsidized housing unit for every six housing units. Ms Gigantes was pushing her government to increase that percentage to 30% of all housing units in Ontario; in other words, one subsidized unit for every three housing units. I have a problem understanding how there is such a demand for a subsidized house for every three housing units that exist in Ontario now or ever. Healthy economies, in my view, do not depend on financial subsidies to create a better construction or development climate.
The proposals, in our mind, represent a transitional program which will ensure protection against large rent increases for tenants. We believe Ontario must move from this phased decontrol system to complete removal of rent controls. Such a signal would provide private investors with a greater degree of confidence that we are moving to a market-based system.
We support repealing the Rental Housing Protection Act. Repealing the act will serve as incentive to improve existing apartment stock through conversion to other, more appropriate uses. The RHPA restricted a building owner's ability to make decisions on renovation, recycling or creating an alternative use for rental buildings. The act ignored the natural life cycle of buildings, and extensive capital repairs were not feasible because of the capital cost restrictions imposed upon the landlord.
The proposed legislation put forward by the government will allow tenants to purchase their units in the event of conversion of a rental unit to condominiums. Those tenants who wish to remain as renters in the same building have the advantage of living in an upgraded building created through reserve funds set up for this purpose.
New rental projects constructed since the goods and services tax was introduced in 1991 pay an additional 7% on the full value of their project without rebates applicable. Landlords must pay GST on the input costs of a new building, such as management fees, maintenance contracts, supplies and so on, most of which are not subject to GST recovery. Unlike other businesses, residential landlords cannot collect a GST rebate on the building cost. GST must be borne by the landlord as an extra cost of operating that building. A new threat to the entire new housing industry is the possibility of harmonization of provincial taxes with the GST proposed by the federal government.
In conclusion, we support the phasing out of rent controls. Currently in Ontario, the rental stock is old. Our industry records show that 65% of the rental housing is more than 25 years old and requires an estimated $10 billion in renovation costs to upgrade the existing buildings. By facilitating a new supply of privately owned rental accommodation, tenants will have a greater choice and landlords, through competition, will be compelled to keep rents at levels the market will bear. A well-functioning rental housing market is the best form of protection that tenants can have. Landlords in the city of Peterborough are forced to maintain their apartment buildings to retain tenants, as bad news spreads fast in a small city.
We are confident the public will be well served by a return to a market-based system. We're confident the government does not have to spend a fortune on social housing programs to house Ontarians.
The Chair: We've got about two and a half minutes per caucus.
Mr Harry Danford (Hastings-Peterborough): Thanks for your presentation, Mr Davenport. As we went across the province, we've certainly heard two different opinions, one on behalf of the tenants and one on behalf of the landlords. Certainly, the tenants are quick to point out that there's a lack of choice because there's not enough building going on to give them that opportunity, and of course from the landlords' side, the market doesn't allow for the investment to put in place that kind of accommodation.
Based on the fact that we're working on the present legislation that has been in place through a variety of means through the last few years, is it fair to say that it's not working, the present legislation, that it hasn't provided those needs?
Mr Davenport: We think there should be adjustments to the legislation of the past, yes.
Mr Danford: Based on some of the positions that have been taken, then, if it was based on a market system -- a two-phased question, I guess -- would the landlords build under a market system if it was changed, and could they provide a reasonable rate to the tenants to occupy those accommodations?
Mr Davenport: The situation in Peterborough as we know it today since 1990, when the last apartment buildings were built, the advertised rate of apartment rents was going up at the 2.8% or 1.5% that's currently there, but because of the economy, the rates that the landlord was getting were being discounted because the tenant would move to another building and there was available space. That left a climate where a builder, an investor, had an uncertain rate of return on his investment, so there was no building being constructed. At the same time, that landlord was competing with newer non-profit housing projects, which we are all paying for, and that also caused a lower rate of return on his investment.
To turn all of that around, the economy improving is one thing, but having government get out of the rental business makes it more feasible for a builder who's going to borrow or invest something in the order of $1 million to $2 million in Peterborough's terms. If he's going to make that decision, we have to get that balance, the feeling that the landlord wants to deal with tenants on a regular basis. As the legislation is prepared today, there is an imbalance between the landlord's and the tenant's rights.
The Chair: We have to go on to Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: Mr Davenport, thank you for your presentation. You haven't said anything different than what all the home builders' associations have said. It seems to me the bottom line is that rent control works for you folks because, as you said, the legal maximum rents that can be charged are not being charged because the market seemed to take care of it, the market meaning that many people are not getting the amount of income to access the legal maximum rents, so you guys, the landlords, have dropped the price of the unit down so people -- you have to sell that unit for less money. It seems to me from that point of view, rent control kind of worked.
One of the things I'd like you to address though, is on the comments. Number 4, you said, "The pay-direct system of making monthly rental payments on behalf of welfare recipients is much more effective than the current method of paying rents under the honour system." Could you just comment on this for me? If you were working, say, for instance, at Canadian Tire and you're renting from somewhere, would it be appropriate that the landlord approach Canadian Tire and say to them, "Will you now pass the money over so that he pays rent"? Would that be appropriate, do you feel?
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Mr Davenport: If the tenant is not paying his rent, then it is possible for the landlord to make other approaches, or evict the person is one way.
If you look at the overall apartment rental system, as I understand it, a private investor is not going to evaluate his various tenants based on anything but their ability to pay. The move away from the direct pay for welfare recipients to the honour system, payment by welfare recipients, has resulted in landlords making a choice of which tenant they're going to take. They're going through a screening process to evaluate the person they're going to take and as a private investor they have to make that choice. They look for the person who is most probable to make that payment.
Mr Marchese: Mr Davenport, we've heard many deputations this morning where they really say that the balance has never been in favour of the tenant and this proposal serves nothing but the landlord in terms of almost every proposal that's here, every recommendation that's here. As far as they're concerned, that balance is going to hurt tenants.
One of the things landlords talk about is that if you have high vacancy rates -- and Mr Babcock was here this morning saying that the vacancy rates are well beyond 3.5%. He estimates they're about 8%. You argue, I would think, like him, that if you have high vacancy rates, that's good protection for the tenant because the rates are likely to go down. Is that correct?
Mr Davenport: It creates competition in the community, that's correct.
Mr Marchese: Rates are likely to go down because there are high vacancy rates.
Mr Davenport: The rates are being discounted to the tenant.
Mr Marchese: Right. The Peterborough Community Legal Centre, Volunteers and Information Peterborough and the Peterborough Social Planning Council have documented very well the fact that rents have been going up, if anything, in an environment where there's a high vacancy rate. Do you have any evidence to show otherwise?
Mr Davenport: In preparing this presentation, I have researched with the various landlords I have direct involvement with, and each one of them has indicated that there is a discounting of rents going on in the city of Peterborough to hold the tenants, otherwise the tenant moves from this building to that building to obtain a better rent. It depends on what you're looking at. Yes, the published rent rate has gone up with the allowed increases provided under rent controls, but what's being paid by the tenant is not necessarily the published rate.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Davenport. We do appreciate your input this afternoon.
SOCIAL HOUSING CONTACT GROUP OF PETERBOROUGH
The Chair: Our next presenter is from the Social Housing Contact Group of Peterborough, John Martyn and Cheryl Procter. Good afternoon and welcome. Should you allow some time for questions in your 20 minutes, they would begin with the Liberals. The floor is yours.
Mr John Martyn: Good evening. Welcome back to Peterborough, Mr Carroll.
My name is John Martyn. I'm chair of Kairos Non-Profit Housing of Peterborough. Today, I'm speaking on behalf of the Social Housing Contact Group of Peterborough. We are the administrators, managers and volunteer board members of several social housing projects. We meet occasionally to discuss management and maintenance issues. My comments are a combination of the views of those members that we were able to gather through the summer and my own opinions based on almost 10 years of volunteer work in the social housing sector. In addition to this brief, there's a response attached to the package from one other member of our group.
To provide a context for our responses, I have asked Mrs Cheryl Procter, a tenant in Kairos Non-Profit Housing, to briefly tell you about her experiences as a tenant in both the private and non-profit sectors.
Mrs Cheryl Procter: I've lived in geared-to-income housing since January 1996. For the first time in nine years I've had affordable housing. Before this, I had an apartment and was paying $650 per month, plus heat and hydro. Things were tight. I was above my amount allowed for housing, but I was managing. I had a part-time job and was assisted by social services. Things were slow and I was not needed at my job and the business ended up being sold.
Then in November the cutbacks came and I could no longer keep my apartment. I had a very good man for a landlord, but he had a mortgage to pay and was sorry, but he could not lower the rent. I ended up storing my furniture in his garage and moving myself and my two girls into a boarding-house situation. It was all that I could find that was within the amount I was allowed to pay from my social services cheque.
I registered with the Housing Resource Centre and they helped me to apply to different geared-to-income organizations. I was fortunate enough to get accepted in Kairos Non-Profit Housing. It was the best break my children and I have ever had. For the first time in nine years, since my marital breakup, I have affordable housing. There's like a great burden has been lifted. I can afford for my children to be involved in a few more things and lead a more normal lifestyle. For once, I don't have to worry all the time about how we will get through the month or who I will have to put off paying in order to pay the rent and buy groceries.
In my opinion, there's a great need for affordable housing in Peterborough. I know of many people on waiting lists for geared-to-income housing and they are really struggling to get by. I feel if rent controls are lifted in Peterborough, things can only get worse. I know there are a lot of places for rent advertised in the local papers, but most of them are out of reach for people on low income or social assistance. I don't know the statistics, but I feel that a high percentage of the renters in Peterborough are on fixed or low incomes. If rents were to increase any more, it is my feeling that more and more people will become homeless. Thank you.
Mr Martyn: Mrs Procter has attached to her document a breakdown of the before-and-after impact of the cuts in her own particular situation and they're there for your information. Thanks, Cheryl.
Access to affordable, safe, well-maintained housing is a right of all people. In fact, a community which does not ensure that all its people are housed in decent, secure accommodation is an unhealthy community. Those of us who have worked or visited the slums and ghettos of cities in different parts of the world know the unhealthy consequences of housing and land policies which show inadequate or indifferent concern for people living in poverty.
We agree that indeed there is trouble in the Ontario rental housing market. We also agree that landlords are entitled to a fair rent in exchange for clean, safe, well-maintained accommodation. We also know, perhaps better than those in the private sector, that just as some tenants are difficult to deal with, so too are some landlords.
The trouble in the rental housing market is a direct consequence of poverty and a growing sense of economic uncertainty. We have an affordability problem that is becoming increasingly serious. More and more people are either unemployed or moving in and out of short-term, low-paying jobs, stretching inadequate incomes further and further. Without access to affordable housing and deprived of the support of a well-maintained social safety net Ontario citizens are suffering the social and physical ills that accompany the daily stress of providing simple food and basic shelter. As Colin Vaughan wrote in the Globe and Mail on August 26, "Mike Harris should listen to these experienced fellow-travellers before he sparks a real housing crisis."
Consider this analogy. As the tragedy of the Westray mine disaster makes so clear, one of the great dangers of coal mining is the existence of poisonous underground gases. In the early days of the industrial revolution, to check for danger before entering the mines, coal miners in England used to release canaries into the shafts. If the canaries died from asphyxiation, the miners knew that the environment was unsafe.
Many in Ontario seem to regard poor people as expendable as those canaries. The emerging attitude seems to be that we can experiment with new social policies by depriving the marginalized, the abused, the unemployed, the poor and the physically and mentally ill of the sustenance needed to survive. If the canaries do not survive, we will know it is dangerous for the rest of us. But the canaries must die first. Their deaths are the early warnings that such actions threaten the health of a community.
Consider these few Peterborough examples. Some of these have been mentioned already today, so I'll just call your attention to one or two.
The volunteers of a small non-profit housing project sign a binding, legal performance agreement with one government, spend 18 months developing their concept as volunteers and are ordered by telephone by another government to close down the project and pay all bills within 48 hours and reduce the availability of assisted housing by 20 units.
A group of seniors I have spoken with recently approached the rent review board to complain about their landlord's failure to maintain their building; they are ignored by both the board and the landlord.
There are other examples, but I'll move on.
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We in the Social Housing Contact Group examined New Directions against the context of this local picture, a picture with which, because of our daily experience, we're only too familiar. We offer the following comments on several sections of the document.
The document seems to be based on assumptions of an ability to pay and the likelihood of increases in incomes that are totally out of sync with the reality of most renters in Peterborough. It seems to be a policy for another economic climate than the current one.
For example, if we consider 30% of income, which is the Economic Council of Canada's benchmark figure, as a high but reasonable benchmark for rent, a family requiring a three-bedroom apartment would need a net income of $2,400 per month to afford a rent of $710. This would mean an after-tax annual income of $28,000. To find such an apartment close to schools and reasonable to heat would be a challenge. Furthermore, in the present mortgage climate and buyer's market, families who could afford such rents would most likely purchase a home. For low-income families such a rent is simply not an option.
We do not believe it is possible for a developer to build housing that a growing number of people are able to rent. The supposed incentives offered in New Directions will not in themselves be sufficient. The government's intention to remove itself from the housing business, the loss of additional assisted housing and the likelihood of the removal of rent supplements, combined with the unwillingness of the private sector to build housing for low-income people, will create a housing crisis. Furthermore, as has been pointed out today several times, existing housing stock in Peterborough which might be developed is aging, increasing the costs of maintenance and rehabilitation.
An enlightened, healthy community learns to balance the capacities of three sectors: government, business and industry and, increasingly, volunteers and non-profit organizations. These three sectors, working together, can help a community meet its social obligations. However, in Ontario the capacities of the third sector, volunteers and non-profit organizations, are being marginalized by all levels of government except when it is convenient to acknowledge their existence. Little effort is made to value the economic and social capital this community resource could bring to the solution of such complex issues as ensuring a mix of housing types so that all may be housed appropriately.
The level of government in the best position to lead its community is the local municipality. However, in Ontario, such leadership, despite some excellent work in developing a housing policy and an admirable recent history of collaboration, seems to have been abandoned. It is not a matter of left or right, either/or, them and us; it is a matter of all of us, respecting all, seeking a balance of interests to ensure the health of all. We are not strangers to one another but partners in the common good.
A couple of examples on the issue of vacancy decontrol:
A low-paid worker has to move because of a job opportunity, has to renegotiate a rent, moves into a low vacancy area and is faced with a decontrolled climate. We're confident the landlords will not allow the status quo to exist.
I'll skip the next one because it's been referred to already, but those of you who have students who have, for example, enrolled in a co-op education program at a university will recognize the third one. Such programs require students to move two or three times a year. If they're in an uncontrolled or decontrolled environment, that means they're renegotiating their rent increasingly. In addition to the increasing cost of tuitions, this becomes a major problem because co-op students have to move into other areas beyond the catchment area of the university they're attending.
In our social housing sector we've noticed a decline in the mobility rates since the announcement of these rent control hearings. We expect that rents at the low end of the market will increase at a higher rate than those at the high end. Based on stories that people have told us of strategies that some landlords use who rely heavily on tenants on social assistance for income, we will hear of increases in harassments.
Social assistance rates and incomes will either remain the same or, as is more likely, decrease. Rents, without controls, will inevitably rise. Low-income people will be forced to seek less and less suitable housing; landlords will pay less and less attention to maintenance and safety. Furthermore, the suggestion that sitting tenants would be interested in purchasing rented units that have been converted into condominiums is unrealistic. People who can afford to purchase will more likely purchase homes. In the current economic climate, we do not believe decontrol will accomplish anything other than to worsen an already critical situation. This will be especially true if the implementation of regulatory systems is not vested in the local municipality, who conscientiously observe provincially imposed standards and regulations.
The next comments concern landlord and tenant relations. I've grouped several together.
Although the document is subtitled Tenant Protection Legislation, it's our opinion that, if ever brought into legislation, these proposals will give the landlords the upper hand in this relationship; it will not be a balance. We do recognize that the current situation does seem to favour some tenants. However, individual tenants, especially those on low incomes, are at a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with many landlords. If I can comment on this, in 10 years in the social housing sector, our little project, which is hardly worth a bead of sweat on the minister's brow, has provided accommodation for over 50 families. In that time, in those 10 years, I think we've had three people whom we've had to seriously consider evicting because of arrears.
Proposals regarding maintenance and dispute resolution systems are particularly worrisome. Although the proposals seem to be tough on standards, they are hollow if not supported by a municipality willing to enforce its own standards and a sufficient number of property standards officers with the resources necessary to act quickly.
I'm going to conclude, and you can read the rest. I've made some suggestions because the paper calls for suggestions around the whole complexity of evictions and so on. But I would like to conclude, first of all, by saying that I think a number of us, as you've commented, are coming from the social housing sector in one way or another today, and a lot of us are doing it out of a sense of futility. We do not believe this panel is really prepared to listen, and some of the decisions around the legislation have already been made. On the other hand, we did not want to miss the opportunity to lay our case before the public.
The issue, as we see it, is affordability. Many people, as Cheryl has pointed out, are just unable to pay even the minimum rates now being advertised. The removal of rent controls in a weak system of regulatory enforcement by municipalities will inevitably lead to higher rents, more accusations of harassment, an increase in evictions, more impoverished households, costly settlement procedures, a gradual slide to slums and ghettos, homelessness and all the attendant social ills. We will become an uncivil society.
New Directions must be sent back for further consideration and left off the upcoming session of the provincial Legislature. How many canaries must die before this government understands that the housing atmosphere is poisonous to low-income people?
The Chair: There's only about a minute and a half left, so there's no effective time for questions. Did you have a final comment that you wanted to make?
Mr Martyn: Just to repeat again what I said. The most positive thing I can say, speaking from the volunteer sector, and I'm involved in a number of volunteer organizations around the city: On one hand there's the danger of volunteer exhaustion and burnout; on the other hand, there is a sense that governments at no level really value the volunteer component and the difference the volunteer sector could make, especially those of us involved in non-profit work, to an overall housing policy, especially to serve the needs of people who are in desperate need of housing.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Martyn and Mrs Procter.
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VICTORIA COUNTY ACCESS TO PERMANENT HOUSING COMMITTEE
The Chair: Our next presenter is Zita Devan, a committee member for the Victoria County Access to Permanent Housing Committee. Good evening. Welcome to our committee. Should you allow time for questions in your 20 minutes, they would begin with the Liberals. The floor is yours.
Mrs Zita Devan: Good evening. I speak to you tonight as a member and founding chair of the Victoria County Access to Permanent Housing Committee. I am a strong activist for housing as a right and have been so for the last 10 years. I regard housing as a basic need, a need that must be filled in order to become a contributing citizen of our communities. I am also chair of the Victoria-Haliburton Housing Authority and the founding chair of A Place Called Home, which is transitional housing for our homeless. I am also a landlord.
I doubt if I'm going to say anything tonight that you haven't already heard, but I'm going to say it anyway.
Yours is not an easy task. You have this new tenant protection act for discussion, we're told, and I'm encouraged when I read quotes from Mr Harris when he says: "We want to bring in a rent control program...that will truly protect tenants and give them lower rents. We will replace nothing until we have a superior plan in place proven to work better." So you sit and listen and hopefully go away with more information and knowledge so that indeed we can all benefit from his superior plan.
My greatest concern is the risk of decreasing our stock of affordable housing. With numbers in Victoria-Haliburton as high as 319 on a waiting list for subsidized housing, many with points rating over 120, I'm working towards ways to increase our stock of affordable housing, not decrease it.
What is affordable housing? Well, it is clearly in the eyes of the beholder. Affordable is a different dollar range for each income bracket. We all have to purchase clothing for ourselves; however, there is K mart and there is Holt Renfrew. To the buyer, these items are affordable, and I guess a perfect world would include a stock of affordable housing for all.
I am concerned that by allowing landlords to increase rent on vacant apartments, we will soon have little affordable housing for the low-income earner. Some may say that the market will govern the cost of apartments in each community. I would challenge that that would not be the case in communities like ours where vacancy rates are low. Those who would lose out would be the low-income tenants.
There is too much room for the possibility of some tenants to be forced from their homes by greedy landlords. Your proposal anticipates that there will be landlord harassment. You have created an anti-harassment clause which fines for tenant harassment. I trust no one in this room is naïve enough to believe that an anti-harassment clause would prevent harassment from happening.
Some say rent control has deterred investors from building new housing stock, and there may be some truth to this. However, I would challenge that the changes that are being proposed in the tenant protection legislation will do little to encourage investors but will surely decrease each community's stock of affordable housing.
Decontrolling hasn't encouraged investors in British Columbia or any of the US states, and there is no reason to believe Ontario would be any different. The development industry itself has spelled out the reasons why decontrolling will not result in an increase in new apartments. The industry is asking for reduced development charges and GST, including streamlining the regulations. It also recommends eliminating the property tax discrimination against apartments.
I would not argue that a complete overhaul of the current system is needed, but I have difficulty seeing that the new tenant protection package will work for tenants, landlords and all Ontario taxpayers.
Why was rent control first introduced in Ontario? The Conservative government under Bill Davis brought it into effect in 1975. It was about people: assurance that safe, affordable housing would be available to all. Housing, like health care and education, should be a right of all Canadians. The Rent Control Act put guidelines in place so that the rich could not exploit the poor within the housing market.
We need to remember who rents accommodation. It is mostly those who are unable to afford to purchase their own home: our low- and fixed-income earners, our pensioners and our unemployed. It is my experience that tells you that those who choose to rent over owning their own homes are those who would not be as greatly affected by a rent increase.
In these difficult economic times, with unemployment high and job opportunities small, this is no time to bring down yet another policy that will greatly affect our low-income earners. I realize your ministry is centred around housing; however, you cannot be blind to the impact other ministry policies have had on the same target group you serve. I am speaking about the changes within the Ministry of Community and Social Services. This group has endured a 22% decrease in their benefits. They are struggling to survive. Many have been evicted due to rent arrears. It is these individuals who will be out there looking for affordable housing, only to find that the rent on the vacant apartment has been increased out of their reach. Do you have some answers I'm not aware of where these individuals can access accommodation?
The decisions your ministry will make are far-reaching. Rent control is only one of the issues the Ministry of Housing is dealing with. I urge you to be keenly aware that a change in one area of housing does not stand alone. It is a house of cards, or, better, a balancing scale. The changes in policy will affect other areas, and in the end it's all about people -- not policies but people. It is people who are affected. It is people who will be affected with the sale of scattered units within the Ontario Housing Corp. It is people who will be affected with the cancellation of rent supplement units. It is people who will be affected with the stricter adherence to market and rent-geared-to-income units with the non-profit portfolio. All these changes have already reduced the accessibility of affordable housing for our low-income earners.
Too much has been taken away too fast, and so far I have seen no alternatives that will come close to addressing the need. There must be a way to address the need for affordable housing and still acknowledge the needs of the landlords. There must be an alternative to supporting the needs of the landlords. Increasing rent on those who are already struggling may be the course of least resistance, but in the end, what kind of community will we have? A community where only the well-off will have affordable housing and the poor will be left with what is left, if anything.
There is a price to pay when we do not provide access to safe housing. Your ministry has stated that it wants to get out of the housing business. It's about people, not bricks and mortar. I agree this is about people. We have an opportunity to be leaders in developing a package that will work for tenants, landlords and Ontario taxpayers.
I'd like to thank you for your time.
The Chair: We have about three and a half minutes per caucus for questions, beginning with Mr Curling.
Mr Curling: I must commend you on your presentation, because you are right to the point. These are the dangers which we feel. We have been around a portion of the province and people have come out and told us this exactly, those who are concerned about losing their homes. They have also tried to interpret the New Directions, tenant protection, as to whether this is a protection or not.
I want to talk about Peterborough a little bit, because most people are saying this is a Toronto issue and there are no concerns about tenants here. The vacancy rate here is almost 6%, I understand.
Mrs Devan: I'm from Lindsay, so I don't know what's going on in Peterborough.
Mr Curling: I beg your pardon?
Mrs Devan: I'm from Lindsay, Ontario, which is about a half-hour drive from here.
Mr Curling: It's a good opportunity to ask you about Lindsay then. I'm sure there are concerns about tenants in Lindsay too.
Mrs Devan: Yes.
Mr Curling: Even though landlords are asking for legal maximum rent and they're saying they're not getting it, it comes down to two basic things: affordability and availability. Those who have a lower income are not able to afford it, and those units are not available. Is that the same situation, especially with the fact that the government has reduced people on welfare, has cut them by 22% or 21.6%? Is that the same situation in Lindsay?
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Mrs Devan: Yes. We have a very low vacancy rate. Our community supports a community college with over 2,000 students who, about 95% of them, come from outside the area because we are a natural resources college. That places a huge demand on our affordable housing stock. In most cases the students come with money, which necessarily the working poor don't have, so it is very tight.
There have been some articles that have shown that Lindsay's vacancy rate is higher than it is, but it depends on the time of the year that you take it. For the most part it's very low, it's very critical. We have nowhere for people to go.
Mr Curling: Speaking of students, as you said, they seem to be the most vulnerable because of this decontrol or this hacking of rent control by this government that if the unit is vacant, it does not come under the rent control guidelines any more. I presume the cost not only of tuition fees, which will be affecting students too, but user fees for library etc -- that this policy or this direction in which they are going will play havoc with the students also.
Mrs Devan: I would imagine so. I have to say that most of my energy has been with the permanent residents of Victoria county, but as a parent who has had three children in post-secondary education, yes, I would agree.
Mr Marchese: Mrs Devan, it is always heartening to listen to people from across Ontario who take on the concerns of people who are more vulnerable in society, who have a sense of public interest and a sense of public good and common good, and a sense of how communities are affected by policies, and then come forward to talk about that. It is heartening, for me at least.
Secondly, your concern around the risk of decreasing our stock of affordable housing is very real. Mr Martyn touched on that and explained, in great part, how that will happen. We may have some high vacancy rates in some areas of Ontario, but it won't be like that for long, and for those who can't afford it, it will become an increasing problem. We're witnessing it right now. We don't have to wait until the future.
Mr Martyn says the government's intention to remove itself from the housing business is one concern: "the loss of additional assisted housing and the likelihood of the removal of rent supplements, combined with the unwillingness of the private sector to build housing for low-income people." Add to that the desire by this government to repeal or get rid of the Rental Housing Protection Act, which would allow buildings to be converted to condominiums and the like. Combine that with another report that Mr Martyn made that non-profit housing projects are ordered to return some of their units to market rents and leave them vacant, if necessary, for a while.
All of that lends credibility to your fears that we will have a decreasing stock of affordable housing, so you raise a very legitimate concern that I'm not sure the other members are picking up.
Mrs Devan: I'm quite sure we agree on most things I said.
Mr Marchese: Could you comment, as a last question, on the issue of the market. We had a Mr Babcock who would like to have the whole system decontrolled. He loved this proposal. He thinks it's in the right direction, but it's not going far enough. Then he says that the market should take care of people's housing needs; the government should get out of that business.
What is your view about what would happen to those who are most vulnerable, who are seniors, to a great extent students, people with mental illness, people with disabilities and on and on? What would happen to that particular group if you allow the market to take care of our housing needs?
Mrs Devan: Certainly the market isn't going to take care of our housing needs. The market is going to be set and those who can afford to pay will be housed. Those who have lost their jobs, those who are on social assistance -- there's not enough money in that pot of money to will sustain a market rent.
I don't have any answers. This is a very huge task you've undertaken, but there needs to be a way that you don't place the tenant against the landlord or the landlord against the tenant. The landlords had some very good, some very valid statements that they've made, and there need to be ways to encourage them to build, to create, to provide safe accommodation, without doing it on the backs of the tenant.
Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): Thank you, Mrs Devan, for your presentation. I notice in the presentation that you mention that you are a landlord.
Mrs Devan: Yes.
Mr Hardeman: Is that over and above the fact that you're on the board --
Mrs Devan: Yes. It's only a duplex, though.
Mr Hardeman: We've had considerable discussion, particularly here in Peterborough and all areas where we have a high vacancy rate, about the difference between allowable market rent and the actual rent that landlords are getting. In your case, where you're a landlord and you have a lower vacancy rate, are you presently charging the allowable market rent in your units?
Mrs Devan: Am I presently charging it? Yes, I am.
Mr Hardeman: You're right up to the --
Mrs Devan: And we have a very low vacancy rate.
Mr Hardeman: A very low vacancy rate.
Mrs Devan: Yes.
Mr Hardeman: So there is a connection charging the allowable market rent and the marketplace, the availability or vacancy rate.
Mrs Devan: It's only a duplex, so we're talking two apartments here. When we have a vacancy and we put an ad in the paper, the phone literally rings off the hook. I suppose I could get more for my apartment than I do. I've never looked at it. I try to make it affordable because that's what I'm about.
Mr Hardeman: We've also had considerable discussion about the rent supplements that the province pays, and we are in fact still putting out $1.5 billion in rent supplements. We also hear a lot of discussion about affordable housing and that the public-owned housing is somehow different because it's affordable compared to the private sector rental market. If that was the case, what is it in the public sector housing that makes it affordable? Is it operated more efficiently than the private sector housing? Is it built for less money than the private sector housing?
The question really would be: Is not the only difference how the rent is actually paid? That it's paid partly by the tenants, and the government, through rent supplements, if you want to call it that, pays the cost of that? Is there really a difference in the type of housing?
Mrs Devan: I don't think there's that much of a difference in the type of housing. In fact, I believe I was in your office presenting you with that brief at one time not too long ago, and there were some statistics that showed that the Ontario Housing Corp, at least in our community, operates below -- as far as maintenance and upkeep of the building.
The rent supplements, however, are so important to our community. To me, they create a mosaic of our rent-geared-to-income housing. You're not putting all your poor people in one little category. Having them spread out among the private sector I think is a real plus for any community. I think it's a big mistake to cancel it. It provides us with many opportunities to integrate individuals rather than segregate them.
The Chair: Thank you, Mrs Devan. We appreciate your input this evening.
RODGER COOPER
The Chair: Our next presenter is Rodger Cooper. Perfect timing, Mr Cooper.
Mr Rodger Cooper: Yes, sir. They informed me I should bring along some handouts. I'll just give the young lady a chance to do that. While she's doing that, I'll spend a second introducing myself. I'm from the town of Cobourg in the county of Northumberland. Cobourg is one of the nicest places in the country.
Mr Stewart: Don't say it in Peterborough.
Mr Cooper: In addition to being a landlord there for the past 20 years, I'm a lawyer. I'm coming to you with I suppose some observations and comments based on my experience as a landlord and as a lawyer and, for that matter, a tenant's lawyer and a landlord's lawyer.
I guess I'm old enough -- I've got a little grey hair now -- to sit back and reflect about things a bit and say that in order to have a good deal, I think you have to end up with a situation of balance. From my point of view a good deal is a no-win, no-lose situation. There's a lawyer's expression, "You can always tell when there's been a good deal because one side doesn't go off smiling." I see some response to that. That's one that everybody who's had a little bit of experience in life can agree with. The way I'd define that is as a no-win, no-lose situation. In other words, the landlord shouldn't be necessarily the winner at the expense of the tenant, and the tenant shouldn't be the winner at the expense of the landlord.
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You'll probably note in my little effort here, and I didn't try to make this into a long, formal presentation, this little part is supposed to represent a balance, but I don't have one of those little Vs on it to make it a balance beam. You'll know what it means: It's a balance. On the one side the tenant has a right to decent accommodation. The landlord obviously should have a reasonable reward for two things: his work and his risk.
I'm from the countryside, and we don't have any of those big corporations with thousands of units that exist in the city. As a matter of fact, I was thinking for the last couple of days about this and I know maybe two or three people in the town of Cobourg who make their living out of owning rental property. Most of the people are like me, they've got a few units, and they're trying to look after themselves and I suppose build something and they work at it.
If we're going to have balance, there are some underlying realities. The first reality is self-interest. Self-interest is the basis of all human interaction outside of the Garden of Eden. Even in Communist systems -- I remember visiting Russia years ago, and they told me it was a classless society, that one person could make 10 times as much as the next person and have all kinds of privileges, but it was a classless society. They had a kind of capital there. You can be a religious person -- everybody has got a kind of capital, no matter what kind of society.
The way one goes about writing a balance is that you have to have mobility. If I have a situation like this and I've got more weight over here, I've got to be able to move weight from one side to the other side to make the balance. That's a really important concept. The result of not having that balance is captivity. It's the universal result of an imbalance. If I put more weight up here on this one side, if I move the weight to this one side, the person at the top end of the teeter-totter is a captive; he's floating up there and he can't do anything.
The next question I pose for you is, what is fair? That is the question. I submit to you that "fair" is determined in relation to the attributes of mobility. The one thing the tenant has is the right to move. He can choose his location; he can choose the length of time that he's going to be there; he can choose how much he wants to pay or doesn't want to pay. If he doesn't like it and comes to the end of his little contract, he's gone.
A landlord does not have that kind of mobility. A landlord is in; a landlord is responsible. That's a fact of life. That's the way the system works. It's the only way it can work, probably. What is mobility from a landlord's point of view? I suppose you could say one way to look at it is that mobility is definitely not being a captive, but mobility is probably being able to reasonably and fairly flow through, for example, occupancy costs that he has no control over such as taxes, insurance, utility costs, those kinds of things, because he has no control over them. If you have a situation where one person should not be a winner or a loser, then it seems fair that if there is a cost, the person who actually benefits from the cost be the one to cover the cost. I think that concept of mobility is a really important situation here.
The attributes of mobility, as you look at this thing to try to come up with some kind of reasonably intelligent balance on things, form a basis for analysis. Let's put it this way. There are two different kinds of things here: There are apples and there are oranges. That's the problem. The tenant has the right to move etc and that's his special right; that's his apple. But the landlord has got an orange over here. He's stuck. He's providing accommodation. He's not likely going anywhere or can't go anywhere in a lot of circumstances.
To be honest with you, I believe what is unfair is the question of captivity. I think there has been a situation over time, as a result of legislative and bureaucratic hurdles placed in front of the landlord, to pass on to tenants the cost of the benefits they have received and at the same time have no defence at all against the erosion of his value, of his work and labour, on account of inflation. He is, functionally speaking, as well practically defenceless against the collection-proof tenant or, as lawyers are wont to say, the judgement-proof tenant or the person of straw.
I would like to take a couple of seconds and share with you -- well, I have a little bit of frustration and I have a story first about how bad it is to deal with some of these bureaucratic issues. My wife and I purchased a building in Cobourg that was a dump. The town was pleased to see somebody go and try to fix it. We went and tried to fix it; we did fix it and applied for a rent review. Before we started we asked for instructions in exactly what to do. After we had it all done we were informed that we would have to go and get the approval of all the tenants to the rent increase. How would you like to go and ask tenants for approval of a rent increase?
Do you want me to tell you how many people I got to say no to the rent increase? None, not one. They all agreed to the rent increase because we were fair. We told them when we went into this property, "We're going to make this a decent place to live, and it's going to cost money." We told everybody, and we went back. I just about died when I got this letter from the rent review people, "Go and get the approval of all of the tenants." A lot of those tenants hadn't even been there when the work was done. But we'd been fair to them and we told everybody all the way along. That seems fair. The only problem was that it took 18 months to get a determination.
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After six or eight months I wrote -- you know bureaucracies take time -- to the local office and said, "What's happening?" After a year I wrote three times to the minister's office, and finally they came out and said: "We have no way to calculate this. We have no way to calculate your rent increase." I said, "What do you mean?" "Our computer program won't do it." I said, "Do it by hand." "Well, that would be too expensive." I said: "Listen, just make some kind of guesstimate about what's reasonable, because you're only going to allow so many per cent increase anyway. You don't have to be brilliant; just allow it. You make a provisional order, and when you can solve the problems of your computer the right hand and left hand will get together." But you know what bureaucracy is like.
Eventually, 18 months later, we got it. All this is retroactive, of course. You go to these poor tenants, who could have had a simple little provisional order, and say, "Now you've got to pay this big, whacking sum of money." People have left all over the place. I can tell you I took a big hit. I can't find them, people come, people go etc. That's just an example of what captivity is.
I want to get down to the question of one particular area of captivity. I think tenants should pay for the utilities they consume, because they're neither winner nor loser; they're just paying for what they get. We went in this building and we put in meters for every single apartment, and the bureaucracy said, "We don't allow anybody to have rent review for people to pay for their electricity." I can't understand this. As I understand the situation, rent goes down as much as 25% when people pay their own bills. I've got this other problem, that the leases all say, "We're going to provide the hydro for your cooking, your heating, your hot water and your light," and they say: "Rodger, I'd like to have an air conditioner. I'll be glad to pay a little more." I say, "You're going to make me illegal and I can't do that." Somebody else wants a freezer. These are nice places. There's actually room in these places for freezers. People want to live like that. I can't absorb the cost and they can't have the freezer.
I think there should be the opportunity for landlords to choose to reduce their rent for hydro and gas. I suggest to you that when there is metered hydro, the amount be equal to 1/12 of the lower of the median or average annual hydro or gas costs of comparable units, after throwing out the top 15% who are keeping their place at 80, because they just throw everything askew, and somebody who's got a unit and gone to Florida for the winter, you know what it's like; his bill doesn't count. For things like sewer and water that probably aren't metered, let me reduce the rent saying: "If I've got to pay $20 a month for this stuff, here, I just reduced it $20 a month, and whatever it goes up, it goes up. We'll just tack it on and adjust it once a year," or something like that.
I'd like to go on to another thing. I'll try and be a little faster. I want to talk to you about the question of courts and the problem landlord and the problem tenant. Look, there are problem landlords and problem tenants. I had a judge tell me this morning I made a mistake. I do family law. The situation of joint custody, a little girl -- she's not a little girl; she's a big kid and she came in with her stepmom and I looked at her and I said, "I understand you want to stay with your dad." She said, "Yes." I said: "Don't tell me about it. We've got constraints in the law these days and costs etc. I'm going to find another lawyer for you to go and talk to. You tell him exactly what you want to say and then we'll get your views before the court," because I don't want to drag the kid before the court and I want to take all this long, bureaucratic process. So a judge tells me that I didn't do the right thing because Mr Thatcher from out in Saskatchewan arranged for a simple solution for one of his kids and the court took a dim view of it. I tell you this story because that's the kind of person I am. I try to find a simple solution for problems.
The simple solution for all this landlord and tenant mess is to follow the Small Claims Court example. In a Small Claims Court, ordinary lawyers with 10 years' experience are judges. There is no reason why we can't sit out there and have two sides come to our office or go to an office at the courthouse. You could have a lawyer in Campbellford, where you don't have to travel all this distance, come and be Small Claims Court judges or the equivalent to that. We'll call them small claims residential tenancy judges, and we could solve 90% of this solution, sit back and say you don't have to have everything recorded and all the rest of that, and if you want to appeal it, go and appeal it, but at least we could solve 90% of the decisions. If you checked with the legal aid people who have got both sides on legal aid, they have mandatory so-called mediation. They're getting probably a 90% solution because somebody holds -- the whole thing about solving problems is you've got to communicate. We probably could get good solutions like that.
Another imbalance is the question that in a small community like ours, you can go and get pretty aggressive, extremely knowledgeable legal representation, if you're a tenant, who would be able to tell you every little dot, jot and tittle of, "Well, they didn't fill out this form quite right, they left this little mark out here," and they can go and get you another six months or three months while the landlord goes and starts the process again. I'll tell you, as a small landlord, there's no help out there. Most of the people don't go around spending their lives trying to know little bits and pieces of technical jargon. Why, my goodness, this landlord and tenant stuff is more technical with little details than the law. The general law at least has the question of equity.
Last point: There are such things as collection-proof renters who can stay in possession rent-free or leave without notice and abuse the system with impunity. This is simply unfair to landlords. I've got to tell you, it's really difficult for me as a landlord to have a young single parent say to me: "Listen, I don't have to pay. You can't make me pay. You have the right to get me out and you couldn't collect from me if you want to, because my social worker told me." I would just simply say to you that there are a lot of risks and it seems fair to right the balance. It's the mobility thing. So I would just suggest to you one way to right that kind of risk is the mobility of the landlord having the option to ask the public assistance provider to pay directly to the landlord. I think I'm 26 seconds late.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Cooper. We do appreciate you coming today and giving us your input. Have a good evening.
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ONTARIO PRIVATE CAMPGROUND ASSOCIATION
The Chair: Our next presenter is Sheron Burgis, president of the Ontario Private Campground Association. Good evening, Ms Burgis. Welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes. Should you allow some time for questions, they would begin with Mr Marchese.
Mrs Sheron Burgis: As the Chair indicated, I am Sheron Burgis. My husband and I own a trailer park in the Hastings area. But today, I am here as the president of the Ontario Private Campground Association and its 400 members, who wish to thank the members of the standing committee on general government, rent control, for providing us with this opportunity to address you. We applaud the government's efforts to streamline the current legislation governing landlords and tenants.
I'd first like to give you a little background. There are approximately 1,200 campgrounds in the province of Ontario with a total of approximately 110,000 sites. These campgrounds provide employment to approximately 8,000 Ontarians. The camping season traditionally is from Victoria Day weekend to Thanksgiving weekend, plus opening and closing times, a camping period of four and a half months.
There are two distinct types of recreational camping: seasonal camping, where campers leave their units on the sites for longer than 90 days -- approximately 66% of those sites do provide that type of camping; the balance provide transient camping, which caters to tourists from the province, out of the province and out of the country, using camping accessories ranging from tents to motor homes.
There is a vast range in campground sizes, services offered etc. Typically, campground owners install, maintain and pay for all services they provide. These services include water, sewer, hydro, garbage and recycling. These services can only be provided during the warm weather season, as winterizing costs are generally too prohibitive.
Campgrounds generally located in rural areas are a prime contributor to the local economy. Campgrounds are traditionally owned and operated by families. These are small business people and the very grass roots of the tourism industry. Their survival is dependent upon weather, economic climate and, most of all, dedicated perseverance to overcome obstacles.
Campgrounds are designed, developed and operated strictly for recreational purposes and conform with municipal zoning. To ensure that all campers enjoy their vacation, a strict set of rules is developed by each campground owner. These rules generally deal with conduct, noise, usage of camp sites, equipment, vehicles, hours, payment of camping fees etc.
The issue is the Landlord and Tenant Act proposed changes. In a lot of cases where campers are given an eviction notice for not abiding by the campground rules, grievances have been filed under the Landlord and Tenant Act, as the campers generally find a section of the act that could remotely apply and the hearing proceeds. In the meantime, the problem camper remains in the campground and generally his or her neighbours leave.
Campground owners have to attend hearings at a great expense of time lost and in some cases legal fees. Remember, the campground owner is an owner-operator. The province often will provide the campers with legal aid. Rulings show that the act does not apply. However, the campground owner does not receive compensation for his or her time that has been lost, expenses and the lost revenue from those campers who may have already left the campground during the time period.
Request: We are requesting amendments to the Landlord and Tenant Act that would ensure that the act apply to residential tenants and not to the recreational or vacationing tourist. The act must be clear as to what constitutes mobile homes and park model trailers. This distinction is provided by both the Ministry of Housing and the Landlord and Tenant Act.
A mobile home has been defined by the Ministry of Housing as follows: A mobile home constructed to either CSA Z240 or the CSA A277 standards is intended to be occupied on a year-round basis. Consequently, the construction includes such cold weather requirements as adequate RSI value for insulation, vapour barriers, adequate heating facilities to maintain minimum design temperatures, windows and doors constructed to CSA standards for materials, tightness and thermal resistance, protection from freezing of plumbing pipes and drains and many other features too numerous to mention which are required by the OBC and found in site-constructed homes intended to be occupied on a year-round basis.
As well, the Landlord and Tenant Act, part IV, section 79, has the following definition of a mobile home:
"`Mobile home' means any dwelling that is designed to be made mobile, and constructed or manufactured to provide a permanent residence for one or more persons, but does not include a travel trailer or tent trailer or trailer otherwise designed."
A park model trailer is different and is defined by the Ministry of Housing under CSA Z241 as a recreational unit that meets the following criteria: is built on a single chassis mounted on wheels; is designed to facilitate relocation from time to time; is designed as living quarters for seasonal camping and may be connected to those utilities necessary for operation of installed fixtures and appliances; and has a gross floor area, including lofts, not exceeding 50 square meters when in the set-up mode, and having a greater width than 2.6 meters in the transit mode.
The Landlord and Tenant Act lists as an exclusion, "accommodation provided to the travelling and vacationing public in a hotel, motel or motor hotel, resort, lodge, tourist camp, cottage or cabin establishment, inn, campground, trailer park, tourist home, bed and breakfast establishment or farm vacation home."
However, the Landlord and Tenant Act regulation 705, section 2, paragraph 2 -- listing classes of accommodation deemed not to be residential premises for the purposes of the act, also says, "Premises rented as a vacation home for a season or temporary period not exceeding four months."
This section is the section most commonly used in order to obtain a hearing by a camper under the Landlord and Tenant Act. Does the province want to arbitrate vacations of any duration? We are advocating the removal of "not exceeding four months." Accommodations at most campgrounds are seasonal and, depending on weather conditions, could be from May 1 to October 30. We are therefore in some instances exceeding four months.
In summary, we are recommending that exclusions and definitions regarding mobile homes, as distinct from park model trailers, vacation homes, campground and trailer parks, in the legislation be clearly explained and that efforts be made to eliminate ambiguities; that reference to vacation duration be eliminated; that some consideration be given to zoning and suitability of accommodation in the act so that the Landlord and Tenant Act cannot be used as a tool to breach or circumvent other laws.
I thank you. Would there be any questions?
The Chair: Thank you. We've got about three and a half minutes per caucus for questions, beginning with Mr Marchese.
Mr Marchese: Yes, as a quick question: In terms of a problem camper, what might that problem camper do?
Mrs Burgis: In most instances, where we have a problem camper it is because their conduct has become unruly, perhaps belligerent, perhaps offensive to other campers in the campground, or perhaps the camper themselves. This generally is the instance whereby a seasonal campground owner would go to the eviction status as opposed to another way of handling the situation.
Mr Marchese: Are there rules that campers generally read in advance of coming in so that they are clear about that, or do we deal with them as problems arise?
Mrs Burgis: No, in most cases well-run and -operated campgrounds do provide a set of rules or regulations or a policy handbook. In addition to that, when they fill out or complete their seasonal agreement each season, that addendum is attached to that indicating. As our provincial association, we stress to all of our campground operators that this is the mode in which they should be operating.
Mr Marchese: Did you try in the past to get this matter dealt with in previous legislation? What happened?
Mrs Burgis: There really, as far as I'm aware, has not been any other time where we have actually asked for the legislation to be changed. It has been challenged through court cases and in some instances, because of this four-month clause, regardless of the fact that everything else was understood within the hearing, the four-month would surface and they would consider it to be a permanent residence. That is where the ambiguity of the intention is causing the problem.
Mr Marchese: But in order to deal with the problem, I think you've suggested that clause be eliminated.
Mrs Burgis: Yes.
Mr Marchese: Not reduced in time, but rather eliminated so you could have the power to deal with a problem camper.
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Mrs Burgis: Exactly. The time element really is not the criterion. In our situation, where it's vacation property and vacation experience, the time could vary and the four months is being interpreted at some judgement stages as being the sole criterion. Therefore, by having that in there, it does create quite a bit of confusion.
Mr Marchese: So if there's a problem between you, the owner, and that camper, if you take that out, of course, you're the one who has ultimate control over that. How would the dispute be dealt with if somehow the camper says, "This person is treating me unfairly. This is abuse of power," or discrimination, let us say? How would that person deal with it?
Mrs Burgis: I suppose if it was something to be more of a civil nature, then perhaps that's where it might be dealt with, as opposed to something dealing with rent and occupancy of a camping space.
Mr Maves: Thank you for your presentation. This is a little unusual and outside of the discussion paper, but I can see it being a problem. When a camper comes into a campground and they sign a lease or a contract, is there a length of stay listed on the contract?
Mrs Burgis: If it's a seasonal camper, the length of season is clearly indicated within the terms of the agreement and within the guidelines of the agreement that's signed.
Mr Maves: All right. What happens now? I would imagine part of your problem is you get campers coming in and some of them are loud and drinking beer and so on and carrying on. I would imagine that would be your biggest problem. What's the process now for dealing with that?
Mrs Burgis: With respect to a weekend camper or a short-stay camper, we would act under the Trespass to Property Act and we would enact that in terms of handling the situation that's contained within a short-stay period. Where we are getting into the longer stay or the seasonal camper, where we have incidents developing or happening -- and please don't misunderstand. It isn't a one-time event. In most cases it's been repetitive, three or four incidents, where it has now gotten to be an uncontrollable situation where there's definitely a detriment or a harm to the ongoing business at hand. That is where in most cases the campground owner will go to the process of trying to enact the Trespass to Property Act and that is where the camper will go to legal aid or perhaps some other form of legal advice. Sometimes it's the rent control board itself where they have called and asked for information and someone has said to them, "If you've been there longer than four months, automatically you're under the Landlord and Tenant Act and we have a case."
Mr Maves: So this is in your eyes obviously an abuse of the act because your campground is not meant to be a place of permanent residence. Clearly it's meant to be a vacation spot.
Mrs Burgis: Yes, clearly, and that is clearly stipulated in any agreement or anything that's put forth by the campground owner to the camper, that this is a seasonal or a vacational opportunity. It is not designed or meant to be or intended to be a permanent residence by any nature.
Mr Hardeman: Good evening. To make sure we clarify, the issue of the trespassers act deals with all people who are just there for one or two nights. The Landlord and Tenant Act is the one the tenants are trying to use to stop evictions, but in reality they should not be allowed to use it; it's interpretation. So you're not asking for anything more than is presently in the act, just a clarification to make sure we don't get messed up in legal proceedings that do not benefit anyone?
Mrs Burgis: That is correct. We're not asking for anything to be changed. We're just asking for the ambiguity to be cleared up in relation to the length of time as it refers to the vacation or the recreational experience.
Mr Hardeman: Thank you very much for the presentation.
Mr Sergio: Mrs Burgis, some of the concern you have expressed is very similar to others we have heard from owners of mobile homes, mobile home operators, and I guess a bad tenant is a bad tenant is a bad tenant as well. I think there is enough in there that it warrants to have a look at the legislation as it deals with both, for the tenants of a camping ground or mobile home or the operators themselves. I think there is enough that warrants a good look.
My question to you is with respect to subleasing. We haven't heard anything with respect to subleasing a mobile home or a camping ground, in your case. How do you deal with situations like that, or you didn't have any situation like that?
Mrs Burgis: No. We do not allow it or it is not part of the operation, subletting. When a seasonal agreement is signed between a campground owner and a seasonal occupant, it is for that particular individual. It does not allow for them to sublet or to arrange for someone else to make use of their unit. That is very clearly --
Mr Sergio: So that's not a problem for you?
Mrs Burgis: We've never had that problem that I'm aware of.
Mr Sergio: For the purpose of taxation -- do you pay taxes?
Mrs Burgis: In what form?
Mr Sergio: Realty taxes. Do you pay business tax, realty taxes?
Mrs Burgis: Yes.
Mr Sergio: How are you assessed for assessment purposes? On a residential basis, or commercial?
Mrs Burgis: We're assessed as commercial and not as residential.
Mr Sergio: Normally, how many campsites do you have on a reasonable camping ground, let's say?
Mrs Burgis: They can vary from 25 to 700.
Mr Sergio: The tenants in this particular case here, are they local or do they come from out of the province or out of the region?
Mrs Burgis: In most cases they are definitely from out of the region. We do have several areas where they're out of the province and in fact out of the country, particularly on the border locations. We have a lot of Americans who come for vacation time in Ontario and travel back to their permanent residence in the United States; vice versa with other areas --
Mr Sergio: Do you charge -- sorry. I'm rushing because of time. Do you charge first and last month --
Mrs Burgis: Never. No. It is strictly based on a per-season fee. The method of paying it may vary from campground to campground but generally it's a fully paid seasonal fee at the beginning of the season. Some allow a two-part payment or payments over the course of the season before the season starts.
Mr Sergio: The fees you charge, are they controlled by a particular level of ministry or government?
Mrs Burgis: No, they're not.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We do appreciate your input here this evening.
TENANTS VICTORIA
The Chair: The next presenters are from Tenants Victoria, Alfred Edward Starr and Mary Ann Fitzpatrick. Good evening, folks. Welcome to the committee. The floor is yours.
Mr Ted Starr: I go by the name of Ted Starr. I have the long moniker of Alfred Edward. This is my wife, Mary Ann. Mary Ann didn't plan to be here today because we're expecting our first child today, but it hasn't arrived, so she wanted to come down and see the hearings.
Just for a little background, Tenants Victoria has been in existence about six years. It's been a small volunteer group to give some advice to people in the Lindsay area. Our major activity has been putting on a cable TV show and we've brought guests in from across the province, primarily from the tenant movement, to help answer people's questions. I think my wife wants to say a little bit first and I'll let her go.
Ms Mary Ann Fitzpatrick: First of all, I'd like to thank you very much for allowing me to be here with my husband. What I'd like to do is put a little bit of a human face on the reality of housing. I've listened to the presentations here today and they've been wonderful, but a lot of the arguments have been rather cerebral.
I'm involved with women's resources in Lindsay and Victoria county on sort of a peripheral basis. I come into different committees and help out when special activities are needed. Yesterday I met with our federal MP, who happens to be John O'Reilly.
I guess what I have to say is merely this: 37% of people in the province of Ontario are tenants. That's a lot of tenants. That's a lot of people who need representation, who need help. Many of those 37% are people who through no fault of their own, through downsizing with their jobs, through perhaps mental or physical illness or simply the emotional strain and pressures which today's living can bring upon you without your realizing what's happening until suddenly you burn out, are forced into situations where for the first times in their lives they become renters. I'm sorry. I wasn't prepared to speak today, so please bear with my nervousness.
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But what really scares me is the fact that 30% of all sole-support parents in the province of Ontario at this particular time are spending over 30% of their income in order to maintain a roof over their heads. Imagine if you will what it would be like if you woke up in the morning and you found your income cut -- you were on welfare, you were on family benefits, whichever the case may be -- and you found that because you had moved and changed residences to be, if you're a senior, closer to your family, or if you lived on Bloor Street in Toronto and you wanted to move to Spadina, your rent has increased by, say, 30%. Because after the legislation comes in, if the market is going to dictate exactly how much the rent will be, it could increase by that amount.
Therefore, you're in an apartment. You don't know if you're going to be able to afford it or not. You may have a health problem. You may be in a situation where you're paying so much for your rent that you only have $400 left and you're trying to feed your family; you're trying to feed yourself. You may be looking for a job. How do you buy clothes for that first interview? How do you make yourself presentable enough and appear worry-free and stress-free to go out there and face a would-be employer and say, "Yes, I'm a worthwhile, available person," if you aren't sure you have a roof over your head? It's a question, but I'm just asking you this.
The other thing is, what a lot of people don't realize is that not only women but men as well are victims of violence. I'm a social worker by definition, but I also have a background in working with the mentally ill and I also have a background in practical nursing and I also have a background in teaching. I've jumped all across the board. It's especially difficult for men to admit they have been beaten by their wives, girlfriends, husbands or partners. It's very difficult. That's why automatically when you think of family abuse, you think of women. But it's a problem that everyone has.
With the system changing the way it is -- the lack of legal aid, the lack of money which is available to sole-support parents or single people or people with psychiatric and mental problems -- how do they access a lawyer? Yes, we have legal aid now, and thank God you've kept it going; we appreciate it. But the thing is, we aren't guaranteed that the legal aid plan we do have will last.
Right now it's still very, very difficult for people in the rural areas to access any help at all, because there's no help there, speaking just from Lindsay. We don't have a legal aid clinic, we don't have a lawyer who will handle the poor, and it's a sad situation. So what's happening is that men and women alike are staying in abusive situations. They have nowhere else to go. They can't afford an apartment. They can't afford to run. They can't afford a lawyer. They stay. They die. Look at the news. It doesn't always happen that way, no, but there's a lot of tragedy out there.
Please understand that housing is a basic right for everyone. It's not just a business. Certainly landlords are entitled to their dignity, their respect and their money. I have no qualm with that. But a house is a right; it is not a privilege. Thank you very much.
Mr Starr: I want to apologize to the committee for not getting a handout and so on ready. Part of it was expenses. We're a small group and we could ill afford it. The other thing is that between the baby and other personal priorities, we just didn't have the time. We hope to possibly prepare something and fax it to the ministry and also to the committee tonight or tomorrow.
A real concern we have is -- my training was engineering and law, and I often think -- form controls substance. Just the cover of the document upsets me, because it does focus on tenants, yes, but it's more like a target. The name of legislation is "tenant protection." The contents of the document, in our opinion, did not justify that. It certainly is a new direction, but unfortunately it looks like it's going to be an increase in rent and an increase of power to the powerful, which would basically be the landlords.
I think it's important for the committee to understand that we're from Victoria county. A lot of people don't know where it is. Those in the government party will remember it as Les Frost's home town and home county, but it's on the periphery of just about everything. We're on the edge of the GTA, we're on the periphery of the Kawarthas, as centred on Peterborough. We're on the periphery of Oshawa. Hell, we're even on the periphery of Orillia.
We're not well understood; we're not well serviced. We're a very traditional area. The standard reasoning has always been that if you move in, your grandchildren might be considered local. That is changing, but there are very distinct populations within Victoria county; that is, the old traditional families, the new permanent families, and we have a large seasonal population. It's not an area that's well understood or well serviced.
The important thing to remember is that Victoria county, as well as Haliburton county, has no legal clinic. The Peterborough clinic will give legal advice and will accept collect calls. The Georgina clinic helps tenants of Victoria by providing legal advice and has given us their tie line number. But the thing is that without the clinic, there's a real problem in attitude, especially in service agencies. For example, the social services department and the family benefits department have no one to challenge them. The people who are looking to help get people housed and to help the disadvantaged and so on do not want to challenge those agencies, because they're their source of income. So in Victoria county we have a real problem.
I would like to correct one thing that one of the previous presenters said. There is the Landlord's Self Help Centre in Toronto. It's been in existence for some time and we have made it a practice that if we have any calls from landlords, we always refer them to that agency. I haven't had any further dealings with them, but it is something to remember.
Initially, we were going to make a very detailed presentation and decided against it because we expect you're going to hear more details across the province than you'll ever want to hear again. But I would like to make a couple of suggestions:
(1) Whatever you call this legislation in the final, don't include the words "landlord" or "tenant," please. "Tenant" legally has the connotation of being a serf. It's somebody who was sold with the property. "Landlord," by its very nature, gives a sense of power. My French is very inadequate, but I note that in the French version of the statute, I believe the words are "locateur" and "locataire." There's an interrelationship there. You can't be what we call a tenant or a landlord without having somebody else in the other function. Please use something like "lessor" and "lessee," something that says that we have to work together. Also, don't call it tenant protection legislation. It isn't one-sided.
Mary Ann has mentioned the fact that for a tenant, we're talking about home. For a landlord, we're talking about a business or an asset. But I would point out that during the rent control hearings about four or five years ago, a chief building official from the region of Durham said a very interesting thing. He said in Europe, where he came from, buildings were bought by one generation so that they would provide some income for the next generation and a good income for the second generation down. They kept the buildings. He said that here the whole idea is to make as much money in as little time as possible, and the thing is, the buildings suffer. I think it's really something that has to be considered.
The main focus we'd like to suggest is that we really have to have some way of getting those who own the buildings and those who occupy them to work together. I think the worst possible thing that can be done is vacancy decontrol of rents, because what that will effectively do is put a lot of pressure to get rid of tenants who have the lowest rent in the building. I think it's something that really should be seriously reconsidered.
I would also strongly urge that there be more public information about what rents are available for units. I suggest that rather than scrap the rent registry, it be made universal; that any unit to be rented had to be registered so that people could call a public agency and find out. If you're going to own buildings, you can either go to the registry office or the land titles office and you can find out anything you need to know about that property. If it isn't registered there, it doesn't affect you. There should be something similar for tenants.
It should be remembered that tenants' rights, until very recently, did not exist. I think tenants have only had the municipal vote for less than 30 years, so I think it's time we bring things into the 20th century and give more rights to tenants. They, of course, have to balance with the landlords' rights. I also think that if the province is going to set any minimum standards, then it should look after the enforcement. Don't download it on the municipalities. They've got enough things to do, and enough costs.
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The other thing is that I hope the new legislation, when it is worded, will say something about rent changes, not just rent increases, as the previous tendency has been. I'm not sure how best that could be accomplished, but I think there should be some provision that if the market demands a decrease in rent, the rents should be allowed to go down but not be tied to vacant units.
I also strongly urge the committee to recommend a simplified act, because a lot of tenants, especially, are very unsophisticated; a lot are illiterate. A lot of them, as Mary Ann has said, have emotional problems; they don't understand the system. There's a lot of misunderstanding out there. There are a lot of landlords who are very unsophisticated.
I really think the model of the current proposal of having it as a tenant-reactive system, where the landlord can do something and the tenant has to take steps to stop that, is the wrong model, because you're dealing with people who are in fear of their accommodation and quite often it takes a week to two weeks for them just to realize that they have to do something. I'm really worried that the time frames are going to be such that in the goal for having efficiency, we're not going to have an effective system to protect people.
The other thing is I would strongly urge the committee to consider having some system whereby there's fairness in decision-making. My father was a bureaucrat. He worked for the provincial government for 30 years. I had great faith in him, but I wouldn't want him being the only one to decide someone's fate. I strongly urge the committee to consider something that was done in the original rent control legislation in 1976 where each board that made a decision had one member nominated by a landlords' group and the other one nominated by a tenants' group and they had to agree on any decision they made. I think it's a reasonable way to balance things off.
I have real concern that the landlords remain funded simply because they get income from rents, but tenants have been defunded by the province. I know in southwestern Ontario many tenants groups were defunded, including the London tenants' federation, which was in the process of setting up an 800 line for tenants in mobile home parks.
I hope we've left a little time for questions. I'm sorry, but there's a lot of things to do. One thing the committee might consider is something that the tenant movement has long favoured, and it's been referred to as a rent checkoff whereby, possibly through the municipal tax system, $1 per unit per month would be used to fund tenant organizations locally and provincially, in building associations, area associations, and also province-wide ones. Because tenants who don't have a voice, if they don't feel they have a part in the system, then they're going to fight it, and it's not going to be a friendly time if this legislation goes through the way it appears to be drafted.
I would really also complain that from my training as a lawyer, I don't like having a discussion paper about what the legislation would look like. I'd much rather have the actual wording so that we have something to see what it really means, because something can say one thing and actually end up doing the opposite.
The Chair: Thank you, sir. We've got about a minute and a half per party for questions, beginning with the government.
Mr Stewart: Thank you for your presentation. The previous lady, before you folks came in -- I wanted to ask her a question but didn't have time, but one of the lines that she had was, "There must be a way to address the need for affordable housing and still acknowledge the needs of landlords and tenants." I guess one of the things in the few days that I've been in these hearings that I'm getting more and more concerned about is that we are getting many groups that come in and want the status quo. We are getting many groups that are saying, "Leave it the way it is; it must be working." Yet I'm hearing from groups that there are a great many people who are on waiting lists. I'm hearing about the worry of rents going up, there are no accommodations etc.
What I'd like to hear -- and I want to emphasize the fact that this is a discussion paper, not an act, not legislation -- and I think that's what these hearings are about, are ideas that you have to solve affordable housing and how we're going to create that necessary housing for the people who are in need of it. Don't just say -- and I'm not singling you folks out -- don't, please, say no. Please give us the input that we need to solve the problem about affordable housing. Everybody seems to be concentrating on rent. You tell me how you feel that we can create buildings and houses and roofs over the heads of people. That's what I'd like to hear.
The Chair: Unfortunately, Mr Stewart --
Mr Stewart: I took it up? Sorry. My apologies.
The Chair: You're going to have to get Mr Starr to give you those submissions in writing.
Mr Stewart: We'll go outside after it's over. My apologies, sir.
The Chair: Mr Sergio.
Mr Sergio: I won't be too long because I want to get a question in. One of the previous speakers was Mr Cooper. He said we have to create this sense of balance. Some of the ones we have heard think the balance is tilted at the moment towards the tenant; others would like to go the other way. I believe the legislation, the way it is, would tilt the balance completely to the other side. If the government were to approve the legislation as it is proposed, which way do you think the scale would be tilting towards?
Mr Starr: Let's put it this way: On our TV program we had a sign up that said "Tenant Protection Legislation or Landlord's Licence to Hunt Tenants?" I'm really afraid that the present proposal will make it -- I'm loath to think of what will happen, and it certainly will not work for cooperation between landlords and tenants. Especially in our area, where there is no legal clinic, tenants are not represented. Very few lawyers will take landlord and tenant matters, simply because there isn't the money in it through the legal aid system.
Mr Sergio: So we don't have to create any balance, in other words?
Mr Starr: I think this is going to destroy what balance there might already be. Mr Stewart was asking about affordable housing and rents. Rents, when that's what you need to have a roof over your head, are very important. I think the solution for affordable housing is a long-term thing where we build things in today's dollars and then have it 30 and 40 years down the road where we have an asset and we can continue to use it. I'm really concerned about doing it the other way.
Mr Marchese: Thank you both for coming. I wanted to agree with the statement you made, and that is that in this proposal the tenants are a target; they really are not the recipients of assistance in any way. In fact if you read through the whole document, it offers much to landlords and very little to tenants, so the spirit of cooperation that you're hoping to get out of any document -- this doesn't do it. The landlord or, the French word, propriétaire is the one who is the beneficiary of all of this.
A previous lawyer talked about balance -- well, I won't get into that because that's not a question, but I want to ask his question. He says this is a discussion paper. Is there anything in this discussion paper that helps the landlord, by and large? Is there anything in this paper that helps us to build affordable housing? Of all the suggestions they made, of all the giveaways, is there anything that's going to create affordable housing?
Mr Starr: I don't think so; I really don't. I think what you're going to find is that affordable housing -- you often find that people who need affordable housing have special needs. I know in the case of Lindsay, Women's Resources had an 18-unit development that was designed in such a way that it was primarily intended for abused women and their children. They already had architects' plans so that somebody in one kitchen could watch the children of the people in the next one because the units were built in mirror images of each other. These are special needs a lot of times.
The private sector has not proven in the past to provide affordable housing unless it was in slum conditions. Our local housing crisis office at one time had a landlord phone in and say it was a beautiful apartment. They went out and it was a converted dog kennel, and not very well converted at that.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Marchese. I would comment you didn't ask exactly the same question as Mr Stewart, but you asked it much quicker.
Thank you very much, folks. We appreciate your attendance and your input here this evening.
CINDI ZWICKER
The Chair: Our next presenter is Cindi Zwicker. Good evening, Ms Zwicker. Welcome to our committee. You have 20 minutes. Should you allow some for questions they would begin with the Liberals. The floor is yours.
Ms Cindi Zwicker: Great. I'll give you 10 so you can have a break. How's that?
Good evening. My name is Cindi Zwicker and I would like to thank you for selecting me to present to you this evening. When I was told that I had been selected I was excited that you wanted to hear from me as a tenant. It felt good that you were interested in my viewpoints. But after some thought, I began to think about the language you had used in your discussion paper, and it seems to me that you have borrowed the language used by our previous government. But I am hoping, like our previous government, that you really do want to hear about my issues and my concerns and people who are in the situation that I am in. Although I was left feeling somewhat sceptical about your process, you'll be happy to hear that I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.
I want to spend some time telling you who I am and what I am about. I am a 36-year-old sole-support mom of a beautiful, well-adjusted, believe it or not, intelligent 11-year-old son. I am a university student. I have recently graduated from Trent University with a bachelor of arts degree with a joint major in history and sociology and will be furthering my studies this fall. I wasn't eligible for OSAP. Somehow I did it without doing anything illegal. I'm not sure how I did it but I really hope that no other woman has to go about doing what it took me to get a university degree. I am from a middle-class background and both my parents are ministers of the Salvation Army. Don't hold that against me.
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The reason I am telling you this is to express to you that I acknowledge my privilege in our society. Although I am living below the poverty line at this point in my life I am a very lucky woman. I am not suggesting that life is easy as a sole-support mother but I would not change these years for anything. Why? Because I now understand what is meant by the terminology "structural inequality." I believed, as I'm sure all of you in this room did, that if I applied myself and worked hard I would have everything I needed and hopefully everything I wanted in my life. I now know that this notion was mythical.
Although I am here tonight as a tenant, I worked as a housing advocate before going back to university. Please do not fear the word "advocate." I am offended -- please do not take this personally but I need to say what I feel tonight -- that the Conservative government consistently suggests by its actions and its words that advocates work against the landlord and are only concerned about the tenant. In my opinion this is not the case.
During my employment as a housing advocate, the most rewarding part of my job was mediating the resolution of conflict between landlords and tenants. In fact, it didn't take long for me to realize that most landlords are good landlords and most tenants are good tenants. Most landlord-tenant conflicts were resolved and most often terms were negotiated that suited both the landlord and the tenant.
Within our social structure we have those with power and those without. In a landlord and tenant relationship, and because of the structure of this relationship, the landlord has power over the tenant. This does not mean that the landlord is necessarily a bad person, we know that, but within our mode of production it's just the way it is. Here is an analogy, and I think it's a good one; I was really pleased with myself. In a parent-child relationship the parent has power over the child. This certainly does not mean that all parents are bad people but, as we know, there are parents who abuse the power they have within that relationship just as some landlords abuse the power they have in the landlord-tenant relationship. So we have laws and policies in place to protect the rights of children and we have laws and policies in place to protect tenants even if these laws and policies sometimes are inconvenient for us.
The question that keeps coming up in my mind is, why do we need to make changes to our current tenant protection legislation? What I have heard about the changes to rent controls -- if they're false, please tell me -- is that they will protect tenants. Personally, I don't understand how.
Presently I have a donship at Trent University, so the changes that are occurring will not affect me immediately. When I am finished school or decide that a donship is not suitable for my son and myself, I will have to find housing in a market rental. Why does this scare me? Because if a place that presently rents for $600 a month changes tenancy several times over the next five years, the rent on that particular unit could be unaffordable. Now you will probably say, "Most landlords won't be that unscrupulous," and I believe you, but why make it possible for unethical landlords to adhere to such a practice?
My dream, when I gave birth to my son 11 years ago, on my own, was to provide for him a home, a family home. I know now that dream most likely will never be realized, but I have promised myself that I will do whatever it takes to provide him a place to call home, even if it is a rental.
How about university students who rent apartments for eight months out of the year? Every eight months or so the rent on those units will go up, and we know it. That's part of the way this system works.
Please don't take away rent controls. I know you're saying you're not, but from what I've read, and I don't understand all that stuff, it looks like it. The present rent controls are working to protect both the landlord and tenants, so why put your energy into something that's working? There are so many other issues out there. Your energy could be better used going after landlords who have outstanding work orders. Are you aware of the unsafe apartments in our province?
By ensuring that all people in our province have affordable housing, you are facilitating their ability to become productive members in our province. When I say that, I look back to 10 years ago. When my son was a year old I went back to university and decided I was going to be a lawyer. I wasn't eligible for OSAP because I fell through the cracks and there was no one who could help me. My family are Salvation Army officers. Even though we're middle class, we don't have money and they couldn't do anything. I quit school, got a job, great jobs, not making great money but they were great jobs, so at the age of 36 I'm still in school trying to eventually have a professional job. I just think it's really sad, and it happens all the time. Not all single mothers -- I don't believe any single mother, personally -- want to be on mother's allowance.
Children being raised in unstable or stressful environments do not have a good chance of becoming well-adjusted individuals. We need to look at external factors, such as poverty, which cause hardships to many households. I want to make it perfectly clear to you -- I said this but I got away from this little printed sheet -- tonight that sole-support mothers do not choose to be on family benefits. If given the right network of social supports and not putting barriers in their way, many more would be better able to provide a better quality of life for their children. I believe that all children, regardless of their background, deserve this, and I think all of you do too. It's the way we go about initiating different things.
A paper written by the Vanier Institute of the Family in 1979 says it so succinctly: "Children's needs can only be met if parents are willing to be caring; in turn, parents' willingness to be caring will depend heavily on the support and affirmation they receive from their societal environment."
With that, I'm not saying we want everything given to us, but we don't want these brick walls being put in front of us. I confess to you that I really do not know much about the Lampert report except that it was prepared by a prominent landlord who argues that putting an end to existing rent controls will stimulate investment in real estate. In a city such as Peterborough, those able to pay high rents will not rent in those buildings; they will buy. If I could afford high rent in Peterborough I wouldn't be renting; I would be buying. Even if it was a little wartime house with a little white picket fence I would buy. You are probably thinking right now, "How about Toronto?" I feel that people in Toronto who can afford the high rents would most likely move to those places because real estate is very high in metropolitan cities. What are we creating? Ghettos? I don't want my son ever to have to live in a ghetto because I can't afford to have a half-decent apartment. I have tried to provide for my son. So please don't do this.
I would like to offer you my services, for pay, not workfare. Would you like me to prepare a report similar to the Lampert report but from a tenant perspective? We could call it the Zwicker report, and you would be creating a job for a woman who wants to work. I want to work.
I have been going over the goals for the new tenant protection system and I have some concerns. I would like to present three of them to you so I understand better. If you can respond, if the Chair or I don't know what they --
Mr Sergio: That's the Liberal side.
Ms Zwicker: Okay. Sounds good. It states that the new tenant protection system will protect tenants from unfair rent increases, evictions etc. How does the existing tenant protection system not protect tenants from unfair rent increases etc? What are you comfortable with? I'm not comfortable with you asking me questions, so I'll give them to you. But if someone seriously could answer that I would love it.
Mr Preston: Mr Chairman, why don't you just change places here and get some order.
The Chair: Why don't you finish your presentation and leave the questions unanswered. When it's the government's turn they can deal with the questions.
Ms Zwicker: Okay. I'm giving you this power, but I will do it tonight because I'm in this position.
Mr Marchese: She could ask questions and the government members can answer them. I'm willing to give my time away. We can do it her way.
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Ms Zwicker: You know what? If I can't answer something, then we can go back to these. I think people will be fair about that. If I can't answer your questions, then if you can come back to these, that would be great.
It also seems that the reforms will focus protection on tenants rather than on units, but how does the existing system not focus protection on tenants? I honestly have tried to figure that one out.
It also states that the new tenant protection system will improve enforcement of property maintenance standards. Can this not be done under the present tenant protection system? We need to look at that, and I realize it, but I think that can be done under the existing legislation.
Mr Curling: Let me attempt to answer some, especially the last one.
First, it was an excellent presentation. As a matter of fact, you woke me up.
Ms Zwicker: Thank you. I was going to wake you up. That's why I didn't give you my presentation.
The Chair: We've got about two minutes per caucus for questions, beginning with the Liberals.
Mr Curling: Within the guideline that is presented now, you said, "Why are they changing it?" I'm confused too, because they said they were going to improve this. It doesn't improve it at all for tenants. That's the way I feel. Within the guideline the landlord gets all the time: Provisions are made for maintenance to the building; not only that, provisions are made for profit for the landlord; not only that, provisions are also made for all the operating costs that are involved. It has been so good to landlords that some can't even accept the legal maximum rent, so they charge far less, because those who are coming in are not able to afford rents as they go up. The system right now works very well for landlords. What should be done is some more protection for tenants.
I only have two minutes, so I'll just attempt that one before the Chairman cuts me off.
Mr Marchese: Ms Zwicker, thanks for your presentation. You raised a few issues that touched me a little bit: the acknowledgement that you are a woman with privilege. I think you mean that vis-à-vis those who have less than you do, and there are many in society.
That twigs me to another thought, that policymakers often create policy from a position of privilege and power.
Ms Zwicker: Of course.
Mr Marchese: They dictate policies for the rest of us. I argue this paper doesn't help the most vulnerable people; in fact it hurts them. This paper wasn't designed for tenants -- that's a big lie -- this paper was designed for landlords. That's quite clear from many of the presentations. Mr Babcock was proof of that. He was very happy with the proposal and hoped they would go further.
Ms Zwicker: I wanted to be here for Mr Babcock. I had to make dinner for my son.
Mr Marchese: It's a shame that you missed it. The other point you made was on the myth about believing that if you want anything, you can have it. They believe that very strongly. That's why we're in trouble.
Ms Zwicker: I'm hoping that tonight, by my sitting here as a sole-support mother, you begin to realize that we want more out of life. Many of us strive, and because of my background I am able to just do it. There are times, believe me, that I don't think I can and there are times that I have raised my voice with my son when I shouldn't be raising my voice. But I have what it takes to say I don't care. I'm doing something. No one is going to look down on me. There are people who don't have the personality, first of all, the background, the education, the intelligence that I have, and I feel for those people.
I think we need to get away from the generalizations we make about single-parent families. I honestly don't believe that any want to be in that position, and if they do there's something wrong or there's a reason for them wanting to do that.
I hope you don't think I'm whining. I just wanted you to hear me. I really appreciate it.
Mr Preston: You did an excellent job.
Ms Zwicker: Why is Gary Stewart not here? I am really upset. Can you pass that on?
Mr Parker: He is out in the hall speaking with another presenter.
Mr Hardeman: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm not sure we can answer all your questions in two minutes but I would like to attempt to answer at least some of them. If you can go to the great difficulty or the task of bringing them to us, I would like to try and answer.
First, I think we were told as a government, by both tenants and landlords or providers of the entity, that the system presently wasn't working, that something needed to be changed. In areas where we have a very low vacancy rate no one is putting any money into the buildings. The present act may protect the tenants' rent but it sure isn't protecting the quality of the infrastructure that people need to live in. In the process of preparing the discussion paper, we are trying to find ways to get the private sector to invest in the rental market and at the same time protect tenants from unfair rent increases.
Ms Zwicker: But if --
The Chair: We haven't got an opportunity for interchange. The decision was that Mr Hardeman will answer these questions; he's going to answer them for you.
Mr Hardeman: I think the other issue was tenant protection as it relates to enforcement, and you questioned whether that could not be done under the present system. Yes, we believe it could be. Enforcement policies as they relate to property standards could be added on to the present tenant protection act, but doing so would not address the need for investment in the housing market, so it's all part of the whole package. We believe that enforcement and the ability of the bylaw enforcement officer to enforce and charge based on the infraction, as opposed to issuing a work order and giving sufficient time for that to be corrected, will speed it up and will provide protection for the tenant to find improvements for the building.
The government is quite prepared and happy to hear you make presentations. As was mentioned in an earlier presentation, it is a discussion paper. We are looking for suggestions on how to improve the system to provide greater protection to tenants, but also to encourage the market to build the type of accommodation that you and others like you, all tenants, are entitled to.
Ms Zwicker: I hope I can believe your words.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Zwicker. We appreciate your input and we've enjoyed your presentation.
Our next presenter is Sol Robbins. Is Christopher Ward here?
We'll recess for five minutes.
The committee recessed from 1918 to 1940.
The Chair: In view of the fact that our last two presenters have not shown up, we will adjourn our meeting.
I thank the people of Peterborough for their input. We've enjoyed our day here. We appreciate your coming forward and giving us your input.
We are now adjourned until 9 o'clock in Hamilton tomorrow.
The committee adjourned at 1941.