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Housing advocates and human rights groups across the province have voiced their concern about SCAN due to the many flaws in the legislation. It contradicts the principles of natural justice by the fact that tenants are evicted without a hearing or the right to face their accusers. It takes away resources from preventative measures, such as treatment centres and community support services. A primary concern to our agency is that the legislation can cause tenants in a building to be immediately evicted from their homes even if they are known to be innocent of the allegations (Section 20 of the legislation states that tenants not involved in the alleged activities may be given referrals to shelters or other community resources).

SCAN undermines the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), which already has provisions to expedite evictions, in some cases this can be in as little as a week. Even with the RTA in place, Ontario would have spent to spend approximately eight million to implement SCAN. Since SCAN is a ‘no-money’ bill, it is the municipalities that will pick up these costs. This money could be better spent on addressing the root causes of crime, such as treatment centres, youth programs, and affordable housing. Since the criminal activity is simply displaced and relocated to other parts of the city, the costs to police and enforcement will increase, as well.

In summary, Houisng Help opposes SCAN because:
It displaces the problem from one part of the community to another
It is financially costly to implement in the community
It evicts people without a hearing
It removes the rights accorded for natural justice
It undermines legislation already in place
It impacts on affordable housing
It is counterproductive to the work of Community Health Centres, treatment centres, and support programs.

Between the seven-week period of December 4, 2009 and January 24, 2010, more than eighty tenants were forced to flee from their homes after they were ravaged by fire. By the end of February 2010, the number had more than doubled, with approximately 200 tenants becoming homeless. The cause of many of these fires is still under investigation. Most of the tenants escaped safely but were left with only the clothes on their backs. Unfortunately, very few of them had apartment insurance to cover the costs of their lost belongings or temporary accommodation.

The vast majority of them had not thought of acquiring apartment insurance. For some it was another added expense to an already tight budget (Statistically, tenants have less than half the income of homeowners). Others thought their landlords were responsible to put them up somewhere and compensate them if their property was destroyed or damaged due to fire. Others just thought it would never happen to them. Throughout the recent fires a number of the fire victims were shocked to realize their landlord was not obliged to provide alternative accommodation such as a hotel or to pay for their expenses or lost property.

According to Statistics Canada, 96.7% of homeowners in Canada have household insurance, compared to tenants of whom only 41.8 % have insurance. The average cost for homeowner insurance is $702, compared to $309 for tenants.

In Ottawa, when tenants are burned out of their homes, the Red Cross steps in immediately to provide emergency accommodation for a period of 72 hours. Usually, this means tenants are placed in hotels. If the tenants have not secured housing within that time, the City of Ottawa steps in to ensure the victims have some form of emergency housing, such as a referral to an emergency shelter or authorization to stay in a hotel. Often, tenants will stay with friends or relatives until they can ascertain the damages to their home, and then decide if they will move back or look for alternative housing. If the tenant is displaced for an unspecified period of time, it may be difficult to terminate the tenancy through the Landlord and Tenant Board, although it would be expected the landlord would not be charging rent during the time the premises are deemed uninhabitable. Even if the fire was proven to be due to the landlord’s negligence, tenants discovered it could still be a lengthy process in collecting evidence and bringing the matter before the Landlord and Tenant Board to terminate the tenancy and seek compensation.

One of the most important reasons for tenants to have apartment insurance is if they were in fact responsible for having caused the fire. Apartment insurance protects them if they were careless or engaged in activity proven to have been the cause of the fire. This can save the costs and stress of being sued and/or evicted through the courts and the Landlord and Tenant Board.

For the tenants that have experienced the trauma of losing all their worldly possessions through the recent fires in the last year, it was a brutal lesson to discover the importance of having insurance. Hopefully, however, it will serve as a notice to all tenants to plan ahead in the years to come.

Saturday Sun – News – March 17, 2007

With rent on the rise, vacancy rates plummeting and no end in sight to Ontario’s housing crisis, organizers of Ottawa’s first Tenants’ Conference hope to give renters a voice.

The all-day conference will be held at City Hall on march 24, featuring presentations from tenants’ rights groups, politicians and legal counsellors.

Empower them

“Tenants have not been given the information they need on how to deal with situations with their landlords, or with the city,” said conference organizer Rob MacDonald. “The purpose of the conference is to help empower them with that information.”

At the conference, tenants will receive legal advice on issues ranging from rent increases to eviction. They will also be encouraged to become politically mobilized to curb a trend that has seen vacancy rates in Ottawa steadily decline since 1995.

“I don’t think that city councillors are actually paying attention to the trend, and it’s getting worse. I don’t think they are aware of the consequences, that we are losing this affordable housing,” said Sandra Bender, an Ottawa resident invited to speak at the conference.

‘Tenants have not been given the information they need on how to deal with situations…’ Rob MacDonald

Bender led a group that brought Commvesco-Levinson Viner before a tribunal when the real estate giant converted her downtown apartment into luxury suites, forcing tenants out.

Toronto City Coun. Michael Walker will also make a presentation, focusing on tenants’ advocacy groups, which have played a part in keeping that city’s rental rates under control.

Walker has won a seat in nine consecutive municipal elections, advocating for tenants’ rights since entering politics in 1982.

“(Tenants) have a voice,” said Walker. “They may not have the organizing power and the power of money like developers and landlords, but they have the power in the ballot box.”

Doug Hempstead, Sun Media, doug.hempstead@sunmedia.ca

Organization key to rights says activist

Wheelchair-bound Ottawa Housing tenant Lana Wong says she routinely puts up with loud neighbours, break-ins and seen at least one death threat.

“It goes right through your head,” she said of the noise. “All your picture frames fall down, your dogs howl, your babies wake up and even the cockroaches run out of the house.”

She and several dozen other tenants gathered at City Hall yesterday to voice their concerns and learn about their rights in the third annual Ottawa Tenants’ Conference.

The main focus of the event was supposed to be financial – but most of the frustrated tenants, like Wong, wanted answers of safety and security.

Kicking in window

“Perfect example was last night,” said Beausoleil Tenants’ Association member Susan Spencer. “(I) had someone in my backyard, trying to kick in my window. I called security and security says we don’t have anybody.”

Senior Greg Gauthier, of the Blackburn Hamlet Community Association, said he’s been having success fighting crime in suburbia by partnering with police.

“We’ve got down to two break-ins this year and we’ve got the drug dealers out. Its a lot of work,” he said.

Spencer sees Gauthier’s success story as an example of non-community housing tenants – like those in Blackburn Hamlet getting more attention due to what she perceives as discrimination.

If that’s the case, Housing Help tenant advocate Rob MacDonald said, tenants need to organize to fight for their rights.

“People in social housing have just as much a concern about who their neighbours are and the kind of environment they want to raise their children in as anyone else,” he said.

The solution to crime and social housing, he added, can’t only be found through evictions, but through meetings like yesterday’. He said a unified tenant voice calling for more addiction centres would be a big step toward curbing crime in social housing.

But MacDonald sees finances as a bigger issue. He said tenants also don’t bring their voice to taxation issues like the proposed harmonized sales tax, because many of them don’t see property taxes as an issue that affects them.

“Tenants actually pay 70% more property taxes than a homeowner in a comparable unit,” he said. “That’s a message we want to get out to tenants is these issues do affect them.”

We envision rental communities where tenants live in adequate, affordable, safe housing, free from anxiety, oppression, and discrimination. Through education, support and sharing of best practices, we seek to strengthen tenants’ voices to win housing improvements and develop positive, healthy communities.

Part of the conference is to provide a year-round forum to discuss issues that pertain to tenants in Ottawa. You can read about issues, comment, and interact with other tenants at the Ottawa Tenants Conference Blog.

Click here to Register

110 Laurier Avenue West
City Hall (Andrew Haydon Hall)
Saturday September 10th, 2011
9am-3pm
Admission is free

It will be held in Andrew Haydon Hall at 110 Laurier Avenue West. Admission is free and lunch is provided. Bus tickets and a limited number of daycare subsidies are also available on a first come, first served basis. In addition, each participant will receive a Tenant Kit which contains information about tenants’ rights, community resources available when they’re having problems with their housing, and information about trends and issues affecting tenants in Ottawa.

You can do this by attending the conference which will help you become familiar with the tools and information that address individual housing problems. By increasing your knowledge, you will be able to identify best practices of other associations. You can also assist tenants in building networks and alliances with other tenants and allies. By helping both your fellow tenants and the organizations involved, you can identify gaps in services that could enhance the quality of life for all tenants in Ottawa.

The goal of the Ottawa Tenants Conference is to address the imbalance of power that exists between landlords and tenants by providing a safe environment to engage tenants in dialogue. We strive to reduce the isolation tenants experience in dealing with their housing problems by bringing them together collectively and empowering them to advocate for themselves. We provide education to tenants about structural legislation and systemic policy so they have a better understanding of the broader guiding principles and the decisions at a higher level that impact on their lives.

Learn about the Top Ten Tenant issues in Ottawa