Category: Toronto

30 days left on Marlee

Today begins my final month on Marlee Avenue. My landlords at Old Orchard Properties unlawfully refuse to assign anyone new to the lease, or to recognize me as a tenant even though they have been collecting rent from me faultlessly for two years.

I have not low income for years and the job hunt is proving difficult. Finding somewhere to live is more urgent and fundamental though. If I can find an OK room with good people for $800–$1000, I should subsequently be able to find an OK way to pay the rent.

Morneau linking economic growth to social stability

Asked about de-growth and related concepts as a response to the apparent unsustainability of quality of living improvement based on economic growth:

If we have declining GDP per capita, it is very hard to have social harmony against that challenge.

Former Canadian Minister of Finance Bill Morneau, at a 2023-04-28 Massey dialog

Three trips

Particularly during the dissertation writing phase, I have largely been confined to Toronto and the GTA for the last few years.

That made my recent trips to Ottawa, Guelph, and the Catchacoma forest all the more appreciated:

My urgent tasks are finding affordable housing and a job, but I am looking forward to an active spring and summer of wilderness and crown land camping.

Ongoing occupation demanding fossil fuel divestment at U of T’s Victoria University

Friday was day 12 of Climate Justice U of T’s occupation at Victoria University, pressuring them to divest from fossil fuels.

They have a guide online for people wishing to visit the occupation.

They also have a petition.

Old Orchard homes

Toronto’s Old Orchard Properties bills itself as a builder of “luxury custom homes” but, as a renter since the August before last, I think anyone who gets a tour and takes a detailed look will see that their self-praise is unjustified.

The bannister along our staircase has always wiggled so much that I doubt it would
hold me if I fell; the locks are cheap and the light fixtures take one bulb instead of two and are located in places too high and dangerous to reach (like above an open area for a
staircase, with a wobbly railing beside). The locks and plumbing fixtures are the irrationally cheap sort that landlords choose even when they are responsible for maintenance, and the air conditioning cuts in and out and cannot maintain a stable temperature in summer.

I know every business represents itself as premium, even if it makes discount napkins for the prison and public education systems, but it is particularly galling for a landlord which has treated us so badly as tenants.

Prohibiting eviction through fraud

One of the reasons why Toronto’s housing market is such a disaster is that landlords are basically immune from any mechanism for punishing them for misconduct.

They can abuse the ambiguity of the Residential Tenancy Act to baselessly refuse to assign someone new to a lease, as a way of forcing existing residents to leave or accept an illegal rent increase.

There is also widespread reporting on abuse of mechanisms that let a landlord evict a tenant for their own use of the space or similar reasons. I have personally — and had friends — threatened with eviction for a wide range of trivial or invented reasons, all as a pressure tactic to add stress and try to illegally force people from their homes.

The Landlord and Tenant Board system is completely jammed up, with even the most urgent hearings taking 8-9 months to happen (and then they may be inconclusive, leaving everyone waiting again).

One remedy that could improve things would be a criminal offence for evicting a tenant through fraud or abuse of process. Theoretically a mistreated tenant could sue for damages, but it’s hardly likely that someone scrambling for a place to survive would accept those legal fees and risks. Having a criminal offence would create a real stick to discourage and prevent landlord misconduct, slightly rebalancing power relations in order to make the law work more as written and less as words to be ignored and misused by those driven only be the desire to collect as much rent as possible.

Creating a criminal offence is justified for at least three reasons. Even good tenants who follow the law and pay their rent may face daily and severe stress from the knowledge their landlords are trying to get rid of them illegally. I have been personally and seriously stressed about housing, often to the point of losing sleep, almost every day since the crisis with my flatmate at my old place began years ago. Even with the extreme stress of a PhD program to compare with, Toronto’s housing market is worse.

Taking away someone’s home is a very serious matter, which is why we regulate housing so much in the first place. If the existing system cannot contain landlord misconduct, there must be one with more coercive power against them. Secondly, there is extensive evidence that this misconduct is widespread, if not routine. A significant change is needed to disrupt a rotten status quo. Finally, the potential monetary rewards for landlord misconduct are huge, especially when it has become normalized throughout the system. Only a strong counterbalance has a chance of blunting the incentive for landlords to profit through illegality and misconduct.

TO360 wayfinding consultation

Though I had noticed some of their signage (and, without knowing it, their printed Toronto cycling map has been a key planning tool for our urban hikes), I did not actually know about the city’s TO360 wayfinding project until I saw a post about it a few days ago.

They are currently working on the Long Branch area west of Humber Bay, and held a consultation yesterday at the local library.

The consultation was unlike anything I have done, and really cool. Some knowledgeable local residents turned up, and the TO360 people had printed maps the size of large dinner tables where people could correct errors, note things that ought to be included, and suggest places where they should include custom graphics for something like a building or monument rather than a generic labelled marker. It’s awesome to see a group with so much capability and official support working to map the city from a non-driving perspective.

As shown on p. 11 of the slides, the group is working through the whole GTA as they are funded by the city. It would be neat to explore new areas as they focus on them and contribute to forthcoming consultations. The results won’t just be used for map posts on the street and map posters in subway stations, but also future versions of the cycling map.