Press Hits

There was a standoff between a tenants rights group and a landlord in London on Thursday. Police were called to the now infamous Webster Street Apts. moments after a bailiff initially failed to gain entry. 30 minutes later, the bailiff and officers re-entered to be faced with some tenants shouting “shame!” At a rally last month, ACORN presented records indicating a person named Micheal Klein is behind a numbered company that owns the Webster Street Apts. and dozens of other units across Ontario.

Even with the existing issues, officials in Calgary say the city’s increasing housing supply is already impacting the average rental price, which fell by 4.7 per cent annually last month. ACORN Canada is still demanding the government do more to address rent costs. The organization’s northwest Calgary chapter held a rally for a rent cap on Wednesday morning. William Gillies is the ACORN secretary for NW Calgary and says the situation has gotten out of control. He says even with the new provincial portal, a cap is sorely needed. “Certainly the last number of years it’s been an issue,” he says. “People are getting 20, 30 and 50 per cent rent increases.”

Alberta has introduced a new online portal that will allow developers, municipalities and other housing partners to report red tape and unnecessary home-building delays. As he spoke, protesters from renters’ advocacy group ACORN gathered in front of Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver’s southeast Calgary constituency office demanding the province institute a rent cap. “Rent control is the easiest thing that can be implemented, the quickest thing that can be implemented,” said ACORN city centre chair Maggy Wlodarczyk.

Michael Klein may be ‘a ghost,’ as one angry tenant calls him, but a large group of people in Ontario have had their lives thrown into turmoil by renovictions tied to the Toronto businessman. Dubbed “Ontario’s biggest renovictor” by the prominent tenant advocacy group ACORN, Klein-linked companies and corporations have been systematically buying and renovating properties at the expense of their tenants. According to a report from ACORN, Klein is linked to 21 buildings across Ontario that house an estimated 1,750 tenants. Each of these buildings is owned by a corporation in which Klein or one of his associates is listed as a director and/or officer.

An ACORN Canada study on the subject found that 35.7% of respondents in Nova Scotia who were on a fixed-term lease had been evicted on a fixed-term lease before. Housing experts have said it’s created a loophole that has negatively impacted renters who are looking for long-term housing—all while the provincial government says fixed-term leases exist to accommodate students and those needing short-term housing.

The St. Thomas Fire Department says it was an extreme case of renoviction that led to the closure of an apartment building in the south end of the city, following numerous safety violations. Robin Slade, the co-chair of the London Central and Surrounding Area Chapter of rental advocacy group ACORN Canada, said it’s harder to hold property owners accountable when tenants don’t actually know who their landlords are.