‘More permanent solutions’: ACORN London rallies against ‘renovictions’ – London | 24CA News

“Fight! Fight! Fight! Housing is a human right!”

The echoing chants from pissed off tenants might be heard all through Victoria Park on Tuesday in a rally in protesting towards “renovictions.”

The rally, organized by London ACORN, a tenants’ advocacy group, falls on the heels of ongoing landlord struggles after a number of residents at Webster Street Apartments say they’ve been pressured to go away their items to permit for the brand new landlord to renovate the buildings.

“It’s absolutely unconscionable and the landlords in charge of this should be ashamed of what they’re doing,” stated Nawton Chiles, co-chair of the Carling-Stoneybrook Acorn chapter.

Twenty tenants on the two residences at 1270 and 1280 Webster Street obtained N13 notices close to the tip of April from the landlords, informing them they would want to vacate their house by the tip of August for renovations to happen.

Advocates say the landlords try to kick out longtime tenants to allow them to nearly double the worth of hire.

Global News has repeatedly tried to contact the property homeowners over the previous few months, however inquiries have gone unanswered on a number of events.

Last week, deputy mayor Shawn Lewis in addition to Ward space councillor Peter Cuddy wrote a letter to the Ministry of Housing requesting a moratorium on eviction notices for renovation functions.

“They [tenants] are feeling intimidated and bullied,” Lewis instructed Global News on Tuesday. “They’re desperately worried that they’re going to end up on the street and we cannot afford to put yet another 200 people out of home with no place to go.

“We don’t have enough places for the people who are already experiencing homelessness. So, we certainly can’t start adding to that by allowing greedy profiteering landlords to just start evicting people.”

Chiles stated that whereas the moratorium is an efficient begin, residents want a “more permanent solution.”

“The issue with moratoriums is that by their nature, they’re temporary,” he stated. “We need regulations on these companies so that people have a way to live in healthy and safe homes.”

As the rally made its manner in the direction of the steps of metropolis corridor, London ACORN members stated they’re on the lookout for the town to implement landlord licensing, hire eviction bylaws, in addition to a tenant defence fund.

“You need a licence to fish, to own a business, and so on, so landlords should have one too,” Chiles stated. “We’re looking for a rent eviction bylaw that puts the onus on landlords to accommodate tenants if they do rent renovations so that they don’t renovict them.”

He added that the aim of the tenant defence fund could be to “alleviate inequality” between landlords and tenants.

“Landlords are multi-billion-dollar companies and tenants are not, so there is inequality of bargaining power there but the Tenant Defence Fund will try to alleviate some of that inequality from a municipal standpoint,” he stated.

But as deputy mayor Lewis instructed Global News, “it may not be that simple.”

“We can’t bylaw these things,” he stated. “Our bylaws speak more to property standards and about how we require landlords to fix problems like plumbing, to deal with pest infestations, to deal with windows that are no longer keeping the air out or in. Those are the kinds of things that our bylaw can address. We can’t address landlord-tenant issues.”

He added his frustrations in the direction of Tuesday’s rally.

“You should be rallying in front of your MPP offices because the fix is not at city hall. This is a provincial issue,” he stated. “As city councillors, we’re advocating with the province for you. But we can’t fix this.

“The Residential Tenancies Act is a piece of provincial legislation. Its consequences are having an impact here in London on the residence of Webster Street, obviously, but it is not limited to London,” Lewis continued.

“It’s happening in cities across this province, (and) the Webster Street tenants are the London example of something that you could find in every big city right now in Ontario.”

Two years in the past, the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld New Westminster’s anti-renoviction bylaw to forestall landlords from evicting tenants for the aim of creating renovations after which rising the hire. The metropolis handed the bylaw in February 2019.

More just lately, Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, launched a press release Wednesday after the newest housing invoice, the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, was handed.

“The people of Ontario re-elected our government with a strong mandate to get 1.5 million homes built over 10 years. With this bill, we are making sure Ontario is ready to build more homes while strengthening rental and affordable housing protections,” he stated.

“We will continue to take the necessary steps to protect tenants and support affordable homeownership across the province.”

Clark stated that the NDP voted towards the invoice, saying that by doing so, they’re voting towards the next:

“The NDP complain about the problems, and then vote NO to the solutions,” he continued. “By voting against these common-sense measures to protect tenants and build more homes, they fail to understand that Ontario is in a housing supply crisis.”

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However, federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh spoke out towards eviction notices in London late final month.

He stated that the NDP would push to introduce two items of laws to “help prevent situations like what is being seen on Webster Street.”

ACORN London stated that there’s a city corridor assembly for Ward 3 and Ward 4 residents occurring Thursday at 6 p.m. on the Stronach Community Recreation Centre the place councillors Peter Cuddy and Susan Stevenson will probably be “discussing landlord and tenant issues.”

— with recordsdata from Global News’ Marshall Healy and Jacquelyn LeBel.