Webster Street ACORN Tenant Union wins renoviction fight

Webster Street tenants are celebrating after their renoviction win against their landlord.

Tenants of 1270 and 1280 Webster Street have won a renoviction battle against their landlord, earning the right to stay in their homes. The fight has been ongoing for almost two and a half years.

The tenants were expected to go to a hearing at the Landlord Tenant Board in less than a week, when legal representatives for the landlord, Michael Klein, filed a request to withdraw the remaining N13 evictions.

“I feel like I’ve been on the threshold of hell. I’m feeling greatly relieved that I don’t have to move, you don’t even know,” said Marni Skilton, an ACORN member who lives in the Webster buildings.

“I told my sister I can’t function right now until I know this hearing is off the list. It stifles you to the point where you don’t want to move around your apartment, go out with friends, or do anything because you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Skilton continued, saying it has been an ‘awful nightmare’.

“I’ll be able to get out, see friends, have dinner with my daughter again,” Skilton said.

“I thank ACORN for everything they’re doing. Without them, we wouldn’t have made it. We needed that support and organization.”

In a statement on ACORN Canada’s website, the organization said:

“This was a massive group effort by all 1270 and 1280 Webster ACORN members, but a special thank you goes out to ACORN members Sharon Hodgson, Michele and Tyler Jollymore for providing extraordinary leadership over the campaign, along with ACORN members Marni Skilton, Nancy Gillespie, Gary Labute, Julie Gallagher, Leslie and Amanda Cook for sharing their testimonies with media, politicians and at rallies, and the many who supported and attended actions over the years.”

As next steps, ACORN is calling for action from every level of government to help fight renovictions and financialization of housing:

• The city needs to strengthen the current anti-renoviction bylaw to include requirements for landlords to house tenants in an alternate unit or pay a rental top up, so tenants are protected from displacement if the landlord does major renovations
• The city needs to take strong action against landlords who neglect maintenance – all landlords should be licensed, and the city should create a proactive inspection program, so the onus is no longer on tenants to report issues (and risk retaliation from their landlord)
• The province needs to close rent control loopholes that incentivize landlords to evict long term tenants by implementing vacancy control – this would set a cap on how much landlords can increase rents by when tenants move out
• The federal government needs to create national tenants’ rights standards, including rent controls across all provinces, and set limits to how much housing financialized landlords can acquire

More information is available here.