Ottawa Safe Apartment Bylaw Big Meeting and Action!

Over the past few months, ACORN members have been busy. Knocking-on-doors, making-calls, talking-to-every-neighbour kind of busy. Because that’s how ACORN has always won things, not by waiting around, but by organizing together, building power, and taking action.

All that effort paid off when we packed the room for the Big Meeting. Over 50 tenants showed up. The energy was high right away. People were ready.

ACORN members Olivier Rukundo, Gabby Frechette, and Dorothy Attakora are absolutely great as leaders, really conveying everything in what tenants are actually dealing with. We had chants, we had laughs, and we had Bed Bug Bingo, where everyone “won” what we’re fighting for: a safe home.

But it wasn’t just fun. We got real about things too. We talked about how Ottawa ACORN fought hard to win property standards in the past, and how we always said it wouldn’t be enough without real enforcement. And now? That’s exactly what we’re seeing. Repairs not getting done, bedbugs and cockroaches everywhere, buildings falling apart, all while landlords get away with it.

So the room got clear on the next step. We need a Safe Apartments Bylaw that actually means something, with real inspections and real consequences. Not just words on paper. 

And we didn’t just talk about it. We got ready to act. By the end of the meeting, people were already throwing out chant ideas, planning signs, and getting hyped for the big action the following Tuesday. Thank you to the councillors that attended Ariel Troster, Jeff Leiper, Marty Carr, and Stephanie Plante. 

Then Tuesday came… and it was raining. But that didn’t stop anyone.

We kicked things off at Donald and St. Laurent, and right away you could feel it. Cars honking, people watching, tenants speaking out about what’s really going on in their buildings. Not just one place either. This is happening everywhere. Public housing, private buildings, doesn’t matter. Same issues. Same neglect.

Then we marched. Loud, proud, straight to Capital Towers at 1240 Donald St to confront a neglectful corporate landlord, Q Residential.

Outside Capital Towers, ACORN members living in the building, Jean-Marc Ladouceur, Florence Oparah, and Olivier Rukundo spoke about what it’s actually like living there. Not quick fixes, not one-off problems, but years of disrepair, pests, and being ignored.

We tried to deliver a letter. They locked the doors and shut the blinds. We called. They hung up. We called again. Finally got through, and they said they’d come out to meet us… and then just didn’t. Left everyone standing there.

So we said, alright, if you won’t come to us, we’re coming in.

Inside, it didn’t get any better. A maintenance worker wouldn’t even say who they were. Then tenants got threatened with the police, in their own building, just for trying to talk to management.

Let that sink in. Tenants asking for basic repairs, and the response is to threaten them.

It was shameful. But not surprising. And it definitely didn’t stop us.

We called Q Residential’s head office. We kept pushing. And when it was clear they weren’t going to deal with us, we turned right back to what works: organizing.

We started flyering the building and launched the Safe Apartments Survey, talking to more tenants to collect more stories, building more people power. Because this isn’t just about one building. This is about showing the city what’s really going on and forcing them to act.

That’s how ACORN has always won, through people coming together and refusing to back down. It’s how tenants across the country have already won repairs and real changes in their buildings.

And this is just the start.

Huge thanks to ACORN leaders Olivier Rukundo, Gabby Frechette, and Becky Desrochers for leading a great action.

The momentum is building. More tenants are getting involved. More people are speaking out. And the demand isn’t going anywhere. We want safe apartments. Real enforcement. Real consequences.

If you’re dealing with the same problems, repairs not getting done, pests, being ignored, now’s the time to jump in. Because when tenants come together like this, things start to move. And we’re not slowing down anytime soon.