How renovictions are affecting the lives of Toronto residents

Just about anyone who lives in Toronto will tell you that trying to find a home in the city has become a challenge. But for many renters, keeping one has become a challenge too.

Renovation evictions, colloquially known as 'renovictions,' have become a growing concern in the city as housing becomes more competitive and market rents go up.

The term generally refers to a situation where a landlord takes advantage of their right to renovate a property in order to clear out tenants who may be paying lower rents and to get new ones who pay market rates.

The practice has long been used by some less scrupulous landlords as a way to circumvent rent controls, which cap the maximum allowable rent increase that can be imposed without approval from the Landlord and Tenant Board.

While Toronto City Council recently directed staff to draft a bylaw that would make it tougher to carry out renovictions, it won't go into effect before 2025.

In the meantime, CP24 reached out to Torontonians who are facing, or who have faced renovictions in the past in order to get a better sense of how the practice impacts people.

Back-to-back renovictions

Magenta Suzanne was renovicted from her previous apartment at Dufferin and Dundas over a year ago. She wasn't aware of her rights at the time and her landlord had a serious health issue which deterred her from arguing with him.

She managed to find another one-bedroom apartment just a 12-minute walk away in Parkdale in a 120-year-old building. But she had barely started unpacking her things when the building manager told her that he needed to bring the fire department around to check for "fire code violations."

"I've seen firefighters. They don't tend to wear Versace. They don't wear athleisure-wear," Suzanne says, adding that it was clear they were investors.

"So that all happened literally two weeks into the move. To be honest, I haven't even fully unpacked because as soon as I moved in, it already felt unsettled."

A new owner bought the building in August 2023. The previous owner, who lives in Germany, had a property management company running it beforehand and they gave no indication it would be sold when Suzanne signed the lease.

All 10 tenants were eventually told they would need to move out because the new owner planned to renovate the building.

Wanting to make sure that two evictions for renovations wouldn't somehow damage her chances of finding a new rental, the 52-year-old bartender and voice actor sought help at Parkdale Community Legal Services and found out that she could fight the order.

After she decided to stay, Suzanne says, the renovations proceeded anyway. She feels that the owner tried to make things hard for her. Some of the workers were confrontational with her in the hallways, she says, and they would frequently turn the water off while she was showering without any advance notice.

"I think they got a huge kick out of seeing me run downstairs with wet hair asking them to turn the water back on," she adds.

But it also felt unsafe, Suzanne says.

She would frequently come home from bartending late at night to find the workers had left the security door propped open.

"I thought there were two guys doing construction on the first floor one night, and it was late, and I went down to tell them it had to stop," Suzanne recalls. "It was just two homeless men swinging hammers around."

On another occasion, an axe was swung through her entrance hall wall while workers were renovating a unit next door.

She says her complaints to the workers and the landlord were treated as "meaningless," whether in writing or in person.

"If I approach him, (the landlord), he just walks away. He doesn't talk to me."

She acknowledges that may be because she's plastered hundreds of posters about the renoviction in the area and has organized some of the remaining tenants to fight it.

At this point she thinks she will eventually have to leave.  However she says she's staying in the fight for some of her neighbours who need a voice.  That includes one man who is 88 and has lived in the building for 32 years.  He's on a fixed income and is not comfortable enough with technology to search for a new apartment online.

"I'm probably the most active one in the fight," Suzanne says.  "So I mean, I can't expect someone that's two years away from being 90 to be active. Yeah, so you know I feel like if I leave this is going to fall apart."

About half the tenants have since left the 11-unit building. An elderly lady who lived next door to Suzanne passed away during a week when the fire alarm was going off incessantly. Bad arthritis in her legs kept her from leaving her unit each time, so she just had to endure it.

"Those fire alarms are screeching, like they're so loud. It was a drag for me, but I could leave. But she couldn't. When she passed away, I was talking to the police and everything, and they were just saying how depressing it was, even for them, to know that this is how she spent her final days," Suzanne says.

"I just really felt like, you kind of have to figure out what kind of city you want to live in, and you can't live in the kind where, like (a landlord) can come and kick out 80-year-old people. Then we literally have no future if we have no kindness and no compassion, right?"

At the moment, she pays $1,350 for a small one-bedroom of less than 500 square feet. Anything comparable, she says, would probably cost her around $1,800 now if she has to move again.

"Obviously he (the landlord) is kicking us out so he can charge more. So this building, or this unit, will also be much more money too, right? My understanding is he's furnishing all the units and probably going to rent them to international students."

She plans to make her case at an upcoming hearing at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board.

"We all have leases, and we have not one tenant here who's missed a rental payment, not one tenant who's here has caused a problem. We're all in good standing, and we're all being evicted."

Suzanne's landlord did not return multiple calls and emails requesting comment on this story.

Government working on the problem

In a recent interview with CP24, Mayor Olivia Chow said not moving faster on a renoviction bylaw is one regret she has from her first year in office.

"I wish I did that earlier because during this year, there have been people that have been renovicted, but they didn't need to leave their unit. The renovation could have happened with them in there. It was just an excuse so that the rent would double, triple," Chow said. "I wish I did that earlier, but if we're doing it now."

City staff are currently working to craft a renovictions bylaw based on one implemented in Hamilton and are gathering community input. Among other things, it would require that a landlord obtain a license based on a professional report before being able to evict tenants for renovations.

The provincial government did not specifically give its view on the municipal bylaws when asked, but  pointed out that there are already some protections in the Residential Tenancies Act for renters if a landlord needs vacant possession to do extensive renovations. That includes providing at least 120 days' notice with the proper forms from the Landlord and Tenant Board.

"Tenants also have the right to move back into the unit when the repairs or renovations are done. To do this, the tenant must give the landlord notice in writing before vacating the rental unit and inform the landlord of any change in address," Justine Teplycky, a spokesperson for Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra, told CP24 in an email. "A landlord cannot refuse the tenant’s request to re-occupy the unit and they cannot charge more rent than the tenant would be paying if they had not moved out."

Teplycky said that depending on the circumstances, the landlord may be required to financially compensate the tenant or provide another rental unit acceptable to the tenant. She also pointed out that the fines under the act for a landlord who breaks the rules – $50,000 for individuals and $250,000 for corporations – are "the toughest fines in Canada."

But even tougher rules have long been called for by some tenant advocacy groups, including the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) Canada.

They argue that the onus is on the tenant to try return after the renovation and timeline delays on the project can leave a displaced tenant in limbo. There is also little enforcement around the rules at the moment, they say, leaving little disincentive for landlords to try get rid of tenants whose rent is lower than average.

The Ford government promised changes in 2023, but it's not clear when they'll come into effect.

"You know, in this city, you can't even put up a hot dog stand without a license. So how are you going to renovict people from their homes with no license or no permits? Like that doesn't make sense," says ACORN Canada National President Alejandra Ruiz Vargas.

Her group says they've seen a rise in renovictions since 2017.

In part, they attribute the uptick to older building owners transferring buildings to children who may decide to sell them off rather than manage them.  Investors then buy the old buildings, basing their profit calculations on market rent, which may be much higher than what older tenants are paying.

Ruiz Vargas also believes that there may be many more renovictions taking place than what's recorded, with landlords perhaps just telling tenants verbally they need to go and making a deal without anything in writing.

Education, Ruiz Vargas says, is key to helping tenants know their rights. Having an experienced representative at a hearing can also make a major difference and she points out that even criminals are entitled to legal representation, but somehow not tenants facing eviction.

"This is the most difficult thing to watch at the landlord tenant board – people that don't know, that don't have representation, she says." If I kill somebody, I will be not allowed to have no representation by law, right? How (is it different for) these people that don't even do a crime?"

She also points out that some of the most vulnerable tenants in the city, including seniors, have been at a disadvantage since the pandemic when all the hearings for the landlord tenant board became virtual.

And while fines may be steep for landlords who break the rules, ACORN says there is little enforcement they see taking place, and fighting the evictions at the board can be a drawn-out process.

'Big emotional toll'

Long waits for a hearing can also leave tenants in limbo, unsure that they will be able to continue living in their homes.

"It takes a big emotional toll because you're like, 'What do I do? What should I do? I don't know what to do,'" says Rachel Woodburn, who spoke to CP24.com while awaiting a hearing about her renoviction.

Woodburn says she's packed some of her things and given some away, unsure if she will have to suddenly move when a decision comes down.

She's been fighting to stay in the 300 to 400 square foot apartment she rents in Baby Point for around $900 a month.  Woodburn, 41, has lived there for eight years and says a similar unit in the area would probably cost more than double what she pays now.

Her landlord told her back in April that he planned to renovate the building, which consists of a commercial space at ground level and three units above that, and that she would have to move.

One of her neighbours was a new immigrant and started having panic attacks about the impending eviction.  They all made a pact to fight the landlord, but it fell apart.

Her two neighbours eventually agreed to take $10,000 and move on.  Their apartments, which were renting for $1,000 and $1,600 per month, have now been renovated and are renting for $3,300 a month.

While she can accept that her landlord's costs may have gone up because of increasing property tax and inflation, she'd like to see proof that they have gone up to the extent that would warrant such an increase.

"I get that everything is going up, but my wages haven't gone up," says Woodburn, who works as a consultant.

Woodburn says she's stayed to fight because she can't afford to move.  She says the fact that she's been able to live through the construction all around her is proof that she didn't need to move out.  Although her unit has not been renovated, the kitchen and bathroom were changed about 10 years ago and she doesn't think that anything inside her unit will be altered beyond cosmetic changes.

"Like, what are you supposed to do? I have one income. I don't have multiple jobs. Like, do I need to get multiple jobs now just to pay rent," she says. "That shouldn't be like the normal thing where you're working yourself to death just to put money in somebody else's pocket."

Even if she were willing to leave Toronto, she thinks the rest of the GTA would be just as expensive for her now.

"If I could move, I would," she says.

Future uncertain

Some people are in fact taking on extra work to pay the rent when they thought they wouldn't have to.

At 72, Earl LeBlanc says he's looking for a part-time job to keep up with his rent, which went up twice after he was booted from his old apartment for renovations in 2019.

Five years ago, he came home to find a notice taped to his door.

"There was no phone call, no formal letters on letterhead, anything like that. Just this notice that the place had been sold," LeBlanc recalls.

The new owners wanted the tenants gone in six weeks and offered them $8,000 to move from the building near St. Clair Avenue East and Victoria Park Road.

"It briefly stated they were going to renovate the place. They didn't specify how or what and that kind of thing. Just a major renovation."

He took the deal, not feeling like he had a choice and weary of repeating a past situation where he had lived through a very disruptive renovation in the building where the contractors were not respectful of the tenants. He eventually ended up with around $6,000 after some questionable deductions from the landlord and moving costs.

While he had been paying $890 for his old apartment, LeBlanc's rent went up to $1,100 at his new place in The Beaches. While his old building had parking, storage and laundry, his new one had none of that.

He's since had to move into a different unit in the same building and his rent is now $1,350 – nearly $500 more per month than he was paying just five years ago. Accounting for guideline rent increases, his original rent would have gone up to just $1,009 if it had been raised every year the province allowed since.

On a fixed income, LeBlanc says he has "a little bit of a nest egg, but not much" and is now rapidly depleting his savings.

He says the inflationary economy has been "disastrous" for him.

"At my age, I'm looking for work. I have to get a part-time job. I'm hoping anyway," he says.

Asked if he still wants to be working, he laughs: "Oh god, no."

"It's really stressful. It's really difficult, right?"

He says he sees the current housing system as being "criminal" and "corporate on steroids."

Even so, some of his friends tell him he's actually lucky to be paying what he is given that rent for a new tenant in a very similar unit in the area would probably be around $2,200.

"I can't afford to move. I cannot move, right? I'm stuck," LeBlanc says.

So what would he do if he got another renoviction notice?

"I'm hoping… I pray that does not happen."