Investigating a rise in ‘own-use’ evictions

Own-use evictions are up 85 per cent in Ontario, pitting angry tenants against landlords who say they need their properties back. CBC’s Ioanna Roumeliotis investigates what’s behind the increase and talks to tenants who worry they could soon be living on the streets.

#Housing #Ontario #News

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[gerry]

Why isn’t there more social housing? Disgusting. Plenty of money for wars.

[ricardoalon]

This housing issue in Canada is inhumane, rents are out of control.

[Turtlebear]

The LTB needs to speed up their process. More LLs will be willing to rent their properties if they know if a tenant stops paying rent they can be evicted in 2 weeks rather than a year!

I suspect that Kostos' landlord won't repair or maintain the apartment because he's hoping Kostos will get fed up and leave.

[joept]

Government: there's a housing shortage and people are becoming homeless but lets bring in 1.3 million people anyways 🤨

[NotoriousEmu]

This happened to SO MANY friends and their families when housing prices went up. Landlord would say they needed it for a family member but would turn around and sell it instead or rent it for a much higher rate. If they were in their places a long time, it was an extreme shock to find out what rentals were going for. Watching 1 bedrooms skyrocket from 650 a month to as much as 2300 in some buildings, was disheartening. Especially when you only receive 375 for shelter if on disability.

[yveyjunk]

We Need social housing, not mom and pop investors paying for others to be housed when they are losing their own homes due to high interest rates.

[josephk]

This is all downstream of a chronic lack of purpose-built rentals. Think about it this way, if a unit has been built specifically to house a renter, there is no claim for "personal use" in the form of an N12.

It used to be profitable in the 1970s to make rental apartments, but then there was some tax changes that made it far too expensive to operate rentals, so builders got out of the business of rentals, and instead sold condos.

At the same time, the government had a public finance crisis in the 80s and 90s, and they quickly exited the housing business themselves, and downloaded a bunch of responsibility to the lower levels of government, which offloaded it to the private market. This basically killed public housing and co-ops.

This was all supercharged by having strict lending regulation which required that 60-70% of condos had to be pre-sold in order to begin construction, and when a home won't be ready for anywhere between 3-7 years, guess who is buying? What option was left? Mom and pop condo investors.

A bunch of Boomers and Gen Xers who we're all hyped up by reading Rich dad poor dad, which made real estate their path to riches (plus a fair share of foreign / illegal money) is driver for our housing supply for the last 30+ years. We've effectively made it illegal or prohibitively expensive to build anything else.

We don't have a robust government program to build out supply, and allocate it in a responsible manner like Singapore, nor do we the incentives and structures in place for strong co-op housing like Germany or Sweden, and we don't even have the free wheeling boom and bust over building that makes rents cheaper in Texas / Atlanta. We have the worst of all worlds where housing is expensive, in low supply, difficult to build, and a financialized asset.

We simultaneously have too much and not enough government where they are extracting taxes from building and heaping on regulation to make it difficult to build, while not ensuring there is adequate housing that is affordable for regular people, and are in fact rewarded when housing goes up in price by their boomer constituents.

[Swecan]

As a Swede, the way things work here in Canada sometimes baffles me. So many private landlords. Most rental units in Sweden would be owned by large housing corporations.
So staying in an apartment for decades is easy. Just pay your rent, which increases by a certain amount. Corporations don't care as long as it is occupied and rent paid. Sure there are people "subletting" or renting out condos they own etc. But it seems to be a much higher prevalence here.

But a lot could have changed in Sweden too. But definitely not the crisis like over here. Now people can be working and normal and end up homeless. Used to be drug addicts and alcoholics etc that really screwed up to end up on the streets. Who can afford $1700-2, 000 for a small apartment these days. That is example of unit cost of a town 1 1/2 hours from Toronto.

Everything is turning into this 3rd world, feudal like land.

[daveizms]

Oh Canada, what have you become?
Where finding a job has become a career, and a place to lay your head in peace is called the grave.

Oh Canada...

[mrsvalentine]

For some people renting is their only option, for the rest of their lives. So someone’s apartment could very well indeed be their forever home.

[tpexchange]

As a renter, i dont care why my landlord wants me out, as ling as he gives me enough notice BECAUSE i know its not my place. That's also one of the reasons why i never rent from private owners

[АнечкинаА]

There should affordable living for seniors and people on disability. Government is human for environment and animals, but not for people.

[Metryingatlife]

I see so many elderly people homeless more than ever. It’s heartbreaking.

[Azel]

It's OK when governments raise property taxes by 11% in one year.
It's OK when insurance companies double their premiums.
It's OK when strata increase their fees by 5% twice a year, even during COVID.
It's OK when your mortgage rate went from 1.5% to 6% in 1 year and your monthly payment's when up by $2k/mo, even when BOC said they wouldn't raise rates.
It's OK when your utilities go up year after year.
It's OK when restaurants charge 25% more for 10% less, and request 18% minimum tips.
Those are all OK because of inflation.

When landlords want to raise rents? No, that's rampant greed.

[justanotherchannel]

If tenant is not paying rent and you punish the landlord with a 1 year process guess what you will have shortage.

If you increase immigration like the way Canada has that also won’t help.

[whitelutik]

Maybe if small landlords had confidence in renting out there would be more available units. But as it stands it's pretty reckless to rent out anything with lack of legal protection and support.
Why in the world would anyone want to support random stranger financially for months on end as they destroy your home and you have no power to get them out?

[nickyb]

Don’t blame homeowners for rising rents.. blame rising interest rates, property taxes, insurance, cost of renovations etc..

[servicespost]

Yep, I understand both sides!
Mortgage rates have gone to the roof!
$ 1000 a month increase!
Who can pay that?!