Majority of Torontonians polled want the city to have authority over housing issues

Thestar.com
March 1, 2019
Gilbert Ngabo

As housing prices continue to skyrocket, a new study has found the majority of Torontonians believe the city is not doing enough to increase the housing supply.

Nearly 70 per cent of respondents agree the municipal government should be doing more to address the housing crisis, while only one per cent think the city is already doing enough, according to the poll results.

Only one per cent of Torontonians polled said they think the city is already doing enough to address the housing crisis, according to a recent Forum Research survey.

The findings from Forum Research -- which randomly sampled public opinion among 1,077 residents aged 18 and older -- also a show 65 per cent of people want the city to have authority on housing issues such as the eviction battles between landlords and tenants.

A third of the respondents also believe the existing laws favour landlords over tenants.

Tenants across the city have long decried the increasingly high cost of rent, accusing landlords of using renovations as a tactic to force people out and jack up prices for new renters -- something landlords repeatedly deny.

But in a recent case, the Landlord and Tenant Board fined a College St. landlord $75,000 after ruling it blatantly disregarded the law -- forcing tenants out, ignoring their requests to return, and finding new ones to pay more than three times the rent -- money it can recoup from the higher rents in less than a year.

According to the poll, opinion was evenly split on whether or not to shorten the waiting time for evictions -- something leaked internal documents show the provincial government plans to do to speed up the eviction processes, along with allowing the use of private bailiffs to toss out tenants.

Right now, bailiffs must be government-appointed and cannot use force to evict people or seize their property. The poll found 35 per cent of respondents are OK with that approach, while 26 per cent would support the use of private bailiffs.

Alejandra Ruiz Vargas of ACORN-Toronto, a local affordable housing and tenant advocacy group, said if the city wanted to do more to solve the housing problem, it should start with prioritizing it in the budgeting process.

By allocating enough funds to the housing issue, the city would then be solving more issues of homelessness and social services, and would thus need less money for its police and fire departments, she said.

“What we have in Toronto is an aggravated housing crisis. This is the most unaffordable city in the world,” she said.

Vargas said the use of private bailiffs would be “atrocious” because they would not be unionized and as such could lack proper training to carry out their duties.

“This is something that can be traumatic for people who are being evicted. Who is going to be accountable to who?” she said.

In a statement to the Star, the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) said it encourages changes at the LTB -- changes that include shortening statutory notice periods and reducing unnecessary procedural delays.

Across the province, enforcement of LTB orders takes 12 to 16 weeks on average, but the process can take upwards of six months in Toronto and Peel Region, said FRPO spokesperson Danny Roth.

“Enforcing LTB orders in a timely fashion, whether through a better funded Sheriff’s office, or through the addition of private bailiffs, will create the shared priority of both landlords and tenants -- a system that works with efficiency and fairness,” he said.

But giving the municipality more control over housing is not something they’re advocating.

“We do not believe that the challenges facing the rental sector are matters of jurisdiction. We believe in the current provincial mandate for rental housing issues and believe in the government’s capacity to address the issues the system is facing.”