Population and Housing

[danbrotherston]

Define "genuinely can't pay". Nobody would choose to be homeless if they have money sitting in the bank that would enable them not to be homeless. I doubt very much there is anyone who chooses not to pay their rent who has the immediate financial ability to do so.

There are certainly lots of people who could pay rent instead of say...their phone bill, or grocery bill, or their prescription. But now you are making a judgment call, is a person "genuinely unable to pay" only if they are choosing between medicine and rent, but not if they are paying a phone bill? What if they are looking for a job, and need a phone number? Maybe now it's only if they have a budget phone...

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This is why I favour a guaranteed annual income, so that there is no such thing as “genuinely can’t pay”. I agree that we should not have complicated criteria for who can get help with their expenses, and the large bureaucracy associated with such criteria.

My point is that at least part of the lack of housing is down to worry by small potential landlords that their hypothetical basement suite will cause more trouble than it’s worth. The most basic issue is non-paying tenants who cannot easily be removed.

There is already a provision in the Residential Tenancies Act for a landlord and tenant to make an agreement for catching up on rent arrears, with an expedited eviction process in the event the tenant violates their side of the agreement. I believe there should be an express process allowing the landlord to force the tenant into an agreement of this sort which only requires the tenant to pay ongoing rent into the Tribunal (in trust). There is no argument for the tenant not to pay the ongoing rent specified by their lease agreement, and by paying it into the Tribunal, the funds are preserved in case the landlord is ultimately ordered to reimburse the tenant for something.

This would eliminate the phenomenon of people who simply stop paying and rely on the slow speed with which the Tribunal operates to give them several months of free accommodation.

Additionally, the landlord should be able to unilaterally stop paying for utilities and other similar expenses if rent arrears exceed some small number of months. If they do this, the bills should be deducted from the rent owing, so it’s not an actual change in what the tenant is required to pay; but the point is that landlords should not be forced to pay expenses that are supposed to be paid for by the rent coming from the tenant.

There are also so-called “professional tenants” who rent multiple units, stop paying rent, and sublet them out. This should be dealt with through the criminal justice system, making it fraud to collect rent from a sub-tenant and not remit it forthwith to the landlord.

People who are in need can be helped by the government, not by whichever unlucky landlord happens to get saddled with them.

Another fact to consider: evictions are a symptom, not the problem itself. Having an eviction moratorium is like trying to cure a runny nose by blocking ones nostrils.

I wonder if we need a new word to replace “landlord”? The word sounds like some middle ages person who owns an entire town, but think of how many underused basements there are which might be converted into small apartments if their owners weren’t worried about having tenant problems.

People may have the right to housing, but they don’t have the right to occupy my property specifically unless they’re paying their rent.

I mean, many of the things you bring up, are real problems. I'm pretty sure what you describe as "professional tenants" is actually fraud.

That being said, you're going to be hard pressed to see me generate much sympathy for "landlords", who have benefited from the housing crisis to the tune of millions of dollars of capital gains, for even small scale landlords.

I think that rental housing is a highly problematic situation in general...which is a great shame because it *shouldn't* be, people should have the option of renting without dealing with these harms.

That being said, I don't have really good answers to that, and frankly, that problem is much less critical than the broader housing shortage right now.