Press Hits

Toronto is escalating its fight against negligent landlords as Mayor Olivia Chow says long‑overdue repairs, pest control and safety work are finally underway at 500 Dawes Road, one of the city’s most notoriously neglected rental buildings.

Chow visited tenants in the Beaches–East York high‑rise on Monday, located near Victoria Park Avenue and St. Clair Avenue East, outlining how newly strengthened enforcement powers are being used to force action after years of deteriorating conditions.

“I will not tolerate slum landlords in our city,” Chow said during the visit.

“At least 50 per cent of that building must be affordable houses for people who can’t afford high rents in Calgary,” said Hassina Sadat, who is part of ACORN Canada.

People in the downtown core like the idea of the building getting a second life.

“(Downtown is) more or less vacant…I hope that the new building is going to be sold with a lot of people and coming from…all the different places around the globe,” one Calgarian said.

At a Landlord and Tenant Board hearing on Wednesday, one of the parties in a long-simmering dispute — a man some have dubbed Ontario’s “king of renovictions” — was noticeably absent.

Michael Klein, a recently listed landlord for the case at 80 Guestville Ave. in Mount Dennis, did not attend the LTB hearing despite the adjudicator issuing a formal notice to appear.

The hearing was related to a multi-year dispute at the low-rise building.

The landlord that was originally recognized by the LTB as the owner of the property, Guestville Apartments Inc., has asked the LTB to permit it to evict about two dozen tenants to make way for extensive renovations.

When Erin Fabello resisted her landlord’s attempt to evict her from her apartment for renovations, she did so fearing not being able to find another home she could afford in Hamilton’s rising rental market.

Fabello, 56, lost her Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) bid to stay at the three-storey Sanford Avenue South building at Main Street East, but she made sure to put in writing her plan to return at the same rent once the work wrapped up.

That right to return is enshrined in provincial legislation.

‘Such bylaws have proven vital at protecting affordable housing and preventing more tenants from being displaced by bad-faith landlords so they can charge higher rents to new tenants,’ a reader writes

Amanda Dick was among dozens of tenants in a Hamilton apartment building who won a battle with their landlord to stay in their homes early last year.

The province’s rental-dispute tribunal found “insufficient evidence” that vacancy was needed to allow for planned renovations.

No doubt, that was a “victory” for the residents of the Emerald Street South building, Dick recalls.

The Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) showdown sprang from notices the landlord issued residents in September 2024 to vacate for the renovations.