Housing

ONPHA Members: Read our just published report on aging tenants

August 26th, 2015 by Iler Campbell

Increasingly, housing providers find themselves in a position where there is a need to intervene in the decision making of elderly tenants with diminished capacity. In a report just published to the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association’s members only website, Lauren Blumas highlights some of the common challenges housing providers face with aging tenants and provides strategies, resources and tips to help housing providers support tenants with diminished mental capacity while managing risk.

If you’re a member you can log on here to read the report.

What’s next in housing? Getting ready for the 2015 election

July 2nd, 2015 by Safia Lakhani

This post was first published on rabble.ca

Toronto’s housing crisis is well documented: the skyrocketing and prohibitive cost of rent, the lack of funding for repairs to community housing structures, and the growing wait list for affordable housing are just a few of the issues that have received media attention in the past year.

The facts are equally grim across the country: one in four Canadians spends more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, and an estimated 733,275 low-income Canadians are in extreme housing need, spending more than 50 per cent of their income on housing. Over 235,000 Canadians experience homelessness every year, and some 365,000 households are at risk of rent increases or eviction as a result of the end of operating agreements.

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Landlord and Tenant Board panel aims to define legal relationships between indirect housing providers, landlords and tenants

January 27th, 2015 by Celia Chandler

Thousands of Ontarians live in affordable housing units provided to them by non-profit organizations but which are owned by private sector landlords. The nature of the legal relationship between these three parties is unsettled: a few cases have addressed it but there has been no consistency in the decisions.  In large measure, the parties have worked around the lack of clarity in the law without the assistance of the Landlord and Tenant Board (the LTB).  The nature of the relationship, however, has come to a head in a couple of cases now before the LTB, both involving Toronto based providers of supportive housing to tenants with mental health disabilities.

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Taking the fight for housing rights to court

December 18th, 2014 by Safia Lakhani

Earlier this year, we considered the Ontario Superior Court’s decision on the landmark Charter application regarding housing rights in Tanudjaja et al. v. the Attorney General (Canada) (“Tanudjaja”). The applicants, four individuals in precarious housing situations, requested the Superior Court make a declaration that the federal and provincial governments had violated their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms: specifically, the right to life, liberty and security (Section 7), and the right to the equal protection and equal benefit from the law (Section 15), by failing to implement a national and provincial housing strategy.

Read more on rabble.ca

More news from the LTB on co-op evictions

December 3rd, 2014 by Celia Chandler

We are now aware of 26 co‑op eviction decisions released by the LTB.  Of those, we know that 17 settled at the Case Management Hearing stage.  Case Management Hearings are conducted primarily in person, but also by telephone on occasion.  Our experience at Case Management Hearings has been a positive one – the parties have come prepared to agree to repayment terms with an understanding of the consequences to co‑op members who default.   Unfortunately, across the province the LTB has reported that two of the settlements  have failed; in those cases, co‑op members who have agreed to settlements did not fulfil their terms and have been evicted as a result.     But as far as we know the remaining 15 settlements are in place and working to keep co-op members back on track with payments.

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LTB co-op evictions – report on the first 10 orders

September 26th, 2014 by Celia Chandler

Since June 1, 2014, the Landlord and Tenant Board has handled co‑op evictions in Ontario.  So, I’m sure you’ll all wondering, how has it gone?  We were wondering too, so we reviewed the first ten orders that have been issued by the LTB and published on CanLII, Canada’s free on‑line database of legal decisions.

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