We need answers!

While researching the flaws in the Residential Tenancies Act for my articles in Issue 18 and Issue 19 of The Uniter, it was by complete chance that I stumbled upon a woman that was willing to speak about her experience at 43 Roslyn Rd, a semi-low rent apartment in the Osborne Village. And it was only after a brief phone interview and a meeting in person that I was able to figure out what exactly had been going on at the block.

After learning about the systemic abuse that had taken place there, I became determined to speak with someone, anyone, who could justify the actions of property managers like Shindico Realty. No one, not even the minister responsible for administering the Act, would return my phone calls. Some decided to decline an interview.

Tenants at 43 Roslyn Rd have faced two rent increases (8.8 per cent and 2.9 per cent) and two notices of eviction in the last two years. One of those notices was an ill-conceived threat delivered on Apr. 30, 2009, which told tenants to leave at the end of their leases and went so far as to list the approximate rent increases for the suites after a rehabilitation. The notice came while Masha Giller and several other tenants were attempting to fight an 8.8 per cent above-guideline rent increase. The notice can be read on a blog that Giller and her fellow tenants set up over a year ago.

The notice was never acted on, however. The tenants that decided to stay carried on with their lives after what must have been a frightening disruption. 

I find it bizarre that in the nine months between the last rehabilitation notice (Apr. 30, 2009) and the most recent (Jan. 28, 2010), Shindico Realty invited tenants to renew their leases and moved new renters into the building. Are tenants like Cecelia Wren, who moved in just three months ago, supposed to believe that Shindico was not planning a rehabilitation scheme when she signed her lease in October?

It was also completely unclear whether the Residential Tenancies Branch (RTB) had even received an application before Shindico sent out notice on January 28, instructing tenants to leave in three months. According to a tenant who spoke with an RTB rehabilitation expert, the RTB had received the application, but it had not yet been approved.

I was assured by a government communications person that not only can landlords send out notice before an application is approved, they can send out notice before an application is even SUBMITTED. Essentially, landlords have the right to threaten tenants with eviction before they even go through the process to justify it.

That explains Shindico sending out a strange notice last year and then, suddenly, deciding not to go through with it. Shindico was never penalized for threatening tenants because there is no stipulation in the Act that makes intimidation an offence.

Many different questions emerged from my interview with Masha Giller and other tenants:

Why can landlords send out a rehabilitation notice before the plan has even been approved?

How can Shindico justify raising the rent while simultaneously planning to evict tenants and rehabilitate the block?

If the application has not yet been approved, what gives Shindico the right to set a date for construction to begin?

Why are tenants only given three months notice for a rehabilitation scheme when that requires them to either temporarily relocate or break their lease entirely?

How can the RTB justify the rent control exemption after a rehabilitation scheme? Why doesn’t the RTB keep track of displaced tenants?

The property manager for 43 Roslyn Rd. spoke to me about rent increases two weeks ago but declined an interview for Issue 19. I was further unable to speak with a representative from the RTB, but instead received a strange e-mail from a government communications person speaking on behalf of them. He assured me, however, that I could not attribute any information to him or use his name in my article.

The president of the Professional Property Managers Association was unavailable for comment.

An interview I arranged with Gord Macintosh, the minister responsible for administering the Residential Tenancies Act, did not materialize. No one from his office contacted me to let me know that he was unavailable.

The Residential Tenancies Act obviously needs to be addressed. Community organizers believe that rent controls should be stricter and affordable housing/government subsidies more widely available. Property managers believe that rent controls themselves are causing problems for landlords and, as a result, for tenants. Minister Gord Macintosh has no doubt heard the arguments from both sides.

Tenants all over Winnipeg need answers to these questions.