Retrofits & Rent Gouging

Download ACORNs’s new report Rent Gouging and Retrofits: Tenants’ perspective of the CIB Financing Deal with Avenue Living.

The report details survey results of Avenue Living tenants in Calgary, and lays out the problematic nature of public financing to landlords with no strings attached.

ACORN’s survey reveals that since the deal was made tenants have encountered massive rent increases, substandard living conditions, absent building management, and a lack of tenant engagement on energy retrofits are the norm at Avenue Living buildings. This in spite of Avenue Living receiving large public subsidies to perform energy retrofits on their apartments.

As the federal government commits more public dollars for retrofits in light of the worsening climate crisis, it is critical that financing agreements between the government and private landlords have affordability and anti-eviction covenants and deep tenant engagement.