ACORN goes to Calgary City Hall looking for help on Landlord Registration!
Posted August 19, 2025
Calgary, AB— ACORN hand delivered an invitation to our “Register Your Landlord Action” in East Calgary to Mayor Gondek. Members spoke about the importance of the City of Calgary stepping up to ensure that health and safety standards are upheld for tenants in the city.
ACORN is determined to ensure that all candidates running for office know that tenants will vote in the upcoming municipal election, and that we need elected officials to commit to registering landlords if they want tenants’ support.
Calgary ACORN will continue to put pressure on all candidates running for mayor and demand that they commit to a landlord registration system.
What is landlord registration:
Licensing landlords would create an enforcement system for the provincial Minimum Housing and Health Standards, which is essentially a list of conditions that must be upheld by a landlord when renting out a unit.
Currently, provincial enforcement of the Minimum Housing and Health Standards is non-existent and handled in a way that makes tenants vulnerable to losing their apartments without having their lease protected. ACORN is calling on the City of Calgary to step in, much like the City of Edmonton has considered.
Tenants often don’t know about the standards, and when they do, they fear reprisals from landlords for lodging a formal complaint.
By giving regulatory powers and enforcement tools to the City of Calgary’s bylaw department, a landlord registration system would enable the department to proactively deal with landlords who refuse to keep buildings up to legal standards. It would take the onus off tenants to file complaints against landlords who are not upholding their rental agreements, and it would make complaints anonymous, keeping tenants safe.
Similar landlord registration and licensing systems are already in place throughout the rest of the country. Rest assured Calgary ACORN won’t rest until a landlord registry and proactive building inspections are a reality in Calgary!
