I've already left a couple of comments on the article, for all the good that will do ... but hey, why not a blog post as well?
It irks me that so much of what is written about the 'housing crisis' focuses so firmly on affordability ...and few seem at all inclined to look beyond that one issue. Of course, affordability IS an issue - but not simply in the way that it is presented here.
It is an issue for me that I cannot afford to offer people affordable housing because the systems in Ontario are so severely idiotic.
If I make a bad choice in who to rent to - or even, as in our most recent nightmare, a reasonable choice who then hooks up with a jerk (she, on her own, was a reasonable tenant - always late, but rent was paid, place was clean and well maintained ... it wasn't until he showed up that things got ugly...but unfortunately, landlords can neither predict nor prevent such things)- I can be on the hook for thousands of dollars.
That's not thousands of dollars in lost rental income, boys and girls... that's actual money out of my pocket.
That's thousands of dollars that I have to actually pay - to agencies like the LTB and Sheriff's Office and so on to do nothing useful.... to the hydro and gas and water and insurance and mortgage companies who all expect to be paid no matter what.... and to fix the damages angry deadbeats cause. The lost rental income, that's extra and not included in the thousands of dollars my nightmare cost me.
And to add insult to injury, I still have to support these people through my taxes, even though I knew damn well that they were paying NOTHING for shelter (but still receiving their full shelter allowance) and he was working full time, as well.
My squatters cost me ONE THIRD of my GROSS income for last year. Not net income. Gross. And yeah, that is gross. If I happen to wind up with more than 1 bad tenant in a year, I'm going to be working my butt off to pay their bills and my taxes (which they also benefit from)... and have not one red cent to pay my own bills. How is that reasonable?
Our case is not unique.... drop by the Ontario Landlords Association forums and read for a bit and you'll see that these sorts of messes are happening in every part of the province. It's not just MY LTB office and Sheriff's Office that are filled with incompetent and uncaring people - it's everywhere.
Read some of the tenant activist sites too - they're a laugh riot. So many people so convinced that every single landlord is rolling in cash, and should be required to not only pay taxes to support them, but also pay through the nose to accommodate people's disabilities, bad financial choices, etc.... oh, and if we don't keep them in the style in which they like to live, they can go to the LTB and ask for rent abatements even for damages and issues THEY CAUSE and don't bother to let us know about.... lots of how-to's about that as well.
Sure, we need more affordable housing in Ontario - but to expect landlords to provide it and then not provide landlords with any reasonable recourse to deal with problem tenants is utterly ridiculous. We support low income Ontarians through our taxes.... and now you want the rest of my income too? Seriously?
As I've posted before, there are things that could be done to immediately improve the situation without spending any additional money. But do you know what? I have written to housing critics, MPPs, party leaders, and reporters - and I can not get a single one of them to bother to respond, never mind to DO anything.
I've tried to engage some of those tenant activist types in meaningful discussions as well .... clearly ain't happening... they can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept of moving beyond making demands and name-calling.
It is all incredibly frustrating.
Ways to address problems that don't cost taxpayers more money?! What a totally ridiculous concept! That's not what we need!!! We need a housing bonus... increased shelter allowances.... more human rights laws to force landlords not to discriminate.... more public housing.... more more more always more money!!!
Yeah right.... Ontario must be like the landlords, eh.... rolling in cash with nothing better to do with it than throw it around.
Personally, I think that not one more red cent should go to solving the housing crisis - and homelessness crisis as well - until we have actually implemented the low/no-cost possibilities.
FIRST you do the (relatively) quick and easy fixes ... then if they don't work, you start throwing money at problems.
Ontario has not done that first step.
WHY is it so hard to implement solutions that don't cost money (at ALL levels of government)? Neoliberalism, my friends... if no one is going to make bunches of money off of something, what good is it? None, of course.
Neoliberal societies focus on money... the economy.... money, money, money. Not people, and certainly not solving problems. It's all about making money.
Implement my solutions, no one gets rich.... so why bother?
Sad, innit?
Oh here...decided to save you the hassle of going to look for my proposed low/no cost approaches to solve the issue of landlords discriminating (because we have to!) against people on government assistance:
- notification to OW/ODSP workers re: rent not being paid = STOP paying shelter allowance pending resolution (so that at least that can be recovered once LTB gives order, and to reduce motivation to mess up, misuse the rent $$)
- when rent paid directly to landlord by arrangement, landlord must be notified when that is going to stop (currently, tenants make one phone call to worker, and surprise, no more rent). Include consent for notification in the initial intent to rent.
- retraining at LTB - specifically attitudinal adjustment re: justifying delays and other assorted nonsense because "you'll get an order" - they need to understand that an order is often meaningless. Also need to understand that by protecting the deadbeats, they are harming the majority of low income tenants who do pay their rent.
- Sheriff's office needs retraining, as well - and either enough resources to carry out evictions in reasonable time frame, or end their monopoly - allow landlords to pay baliffs, off duty police officers, whatever.
I don't think OW or ODSP recipients need to be treated any different than others that are working. I work as a paralegal for landlords in the system and many of the people that are doing this kind of stuff are WORKING ... as for OW and ODSP, I do not support direct pay, as we do not expect employers to pay directly for their employees rent either. BUT, that being said, I DO agree that if somebody is not paying rent, or causing damage, that a landlord should be able to present a judicial order to the OW or ODSP office their tenant has been dealing with to get payment, and such payment will be drawn from the ex tenant as an overpayment against their allowances. This way the landlord gets paid, and also, the tenant takes some responsibility.
ReplyDeleteThe difference, of course, is that working people have income that can be garnisheed. As long as there is no way to recover from people on OW/ODSP - and as long as it takes an unreasonable amount of time to get them out so that the costs become ridiculous, landlords either have to discriminate or get out of the business entirely. I do like the idea of orders being paid by OW/ODSP ... but rather more expensive than the approaches I've proposed, I think.
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