Front Burner - Renters brace for winter COVID-19 evictions

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

Hicham Alasbachi is a Syrian refugee who lives in a one bedroom, first-floor apartment on Weston Road in North York, Ontario. He’s been there for a couple years now, but he’s not sure how much longer he’ll be able to stay. Alasbachi’s had problems paying his rent for a long time, and now, seven months into the pandemic, he’s facing the possibility of eviction. As part of Year K, our ongoing series exploring how the pandemic could make Canada a less equal place, today we’re focused on evictions and why the COVID economic downturn is hitting renters so hard.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. I made it fast. It's not all that today. I'm sorry. Thank you. How you doing? You good?

Yeah. It smells so good. Thank you, brother. How you doing? You okay? Yeah. It smells so good. Thank you so much. I wish I knew exactly what time you were coming so I could cook, you know? No. You have to come back some other time and we'll make you a nice feast. Yeah. All right? Nice haircut, man. We'll give you that.

Thank you. Nice feet. Eat before I get smoke. Okay. Do you want me to bring you a smoke? No, no, man. Thank you. Nice feet. Eat before I get soup. Okay, no problem. You want to bring a spoon? No, no, no. Are you shy to meet another lady? No, no. I'm not shy.

No, she doesn't bite. No. She will eat. Because she will eat half of it. That's Hisham Al-Isbachi laughing with his neighbor, who showed up to drop off some food, while Hisham was being interviewed byachi laughing with his neighbor who showed up to drop off some food while Hisham was being interviewed by our producer Imogen Burchard. Since I moved in he make like this for me when he

found like I was trying to cook and I burned my legs he start bringing he told me oh my dear brother don't cook anymore don't do anything whatever. Whatever I cook, I bring you a plate for you. Or if you have friends with you, I also will bring you. And even he doesn't ask me for money or for anything. What a good neighbor. Yeah. Hisham is disabled and relies on a wheelchair to get around, which can make cooking really difficult sometimes.

He lives in a one-bedroom, first-floor apartment on Weston Road in North York, Ontario. He's been there for a couple of years now. And it's no wonder that Hisham's neighbors are bringing him meals. He's friendly and he's very charming. I know most of the neighbors. All of them, I speak with them. I have a relation with them.

We are friends. We speak to each other. They will help me as much as they can. But even with this tight community, when Imogen visited Hisham, he had a lot on his mind. I'm falling behind of my rent always. And they send you eviction notice. And now I'm not trying to look at my mailbox. So I don't want to see the eviction notice really. I think it's there. It should be there. So this conversation took place back in March. And now seven months later, the pandemic has only exacerbated Hisham's financial situation. And as bans protecting tenants from removals have been lifted across the country, Hisham is part of

a growing number of people in Canada facing possible eviction during COVID-19. Many of us have lost our jobs and then receiving eviction notice on top of that for being unable to afford rent. I had to pay by September 7th. I was worried about not having enough money to survive. A lot of people are going to end up homeless or they're going to be precariously housed. As part of Year K, our ongoing series exploring how the pandemic could make Canada a less equal place. Today, we're focused on evictions and why the COVID economic downturn is disproportionately affecting renters. I'm Jamie Poisson. This is FrontBurner. Burnham. So after the moratorium lifted and evictions started happening in Toronto again, we were curious about how Hisham was doing. So we decided to visit him again last week at his home.

So we're just standing right outside Hisham's building. There's a cluster of buildings in the northwest corner of the city of Toronto. And you're hearing a little bit of construction there. They're scaffolding up on his building. Hi, Hicham. Oh, hi. Sorry. When we arrived, Hicham was busy getting one of his three weekly showers with help from a personal support worker. Hisham's disability is something that makes it hard for him to get a job, even at the best of times.

Right now, during the pandemic, it's impossible, he says. He's also facing other challenges. My story, I moved to Canada on the 25th of June 2018. I was sponsored by the church. The church was helping me with the stuff that I need. I don't have any family. I'm living by myself. Since I moved on, I'm living by myself. Hisham is a Syrian refugee. He's in a wheelchair because of an accident during the war. He fell while standing on the back of a truck. And now a year of money raised by Canadians to help him start a life here has dried up.

He explained all of this to us when he finished with his PSW and took us outside to find a quieter place to talk. Hisham, where are we right now? We are here on 2450 Western Road. We are in the back of the building in the parking lot. Your apartment is just on the first floor. Can you just grab your apartment for me? My apartment, like I have a problem with the washroom. It's very tight. So it's not accessible? No, it's not accessible at all. Tell me more about the problems with your apartment.

I have the biggest problem in my life with the roaches. I have the biggest problem in my life with the roaches. Like, just this couple months, I bought, like, for more than $100 or $200, spray and powder for roaches. I try everything I can to get rid of them, but I keep telling them when they come to spray, you don't find any roaches dead on the floor. You just come back to your apartment, you find the bad smell that they put there, and that's it. And where are the roaches coming from? They are coming from the sink in the kitchen, in the washroom, or wherever there is sink, or from outside of the building also. Hisham, we spoke to you before the pandemic started. How have things changed for you

since the pandemic started? When the pandemic started also, the things changed by you don't have any work, you don't have any jobs. Even if you have tried and applied, they will tell you due to the pandemic and due because you are on the wheelchair. They will not say to you exactly you are in the wheelchair, but they will say you, no, we don't need anyone for now. Keep trying, maybe you will get something. You haven't been able to find any work since the pandemic started? To work here, it's very hard and difficult.

Hard for you to find it? Yeah. What kind of support are you getting right now? I'm just getting the ODSP support, which is not enough at all to live or to pay just your rent. Can I ask you how much that is a month? I have $1,150 per month or $163. And how much is your rent? My rent is $1,420 and now it's $1,456 or $60. So your rent is more money than what you're taking in every month? Yeah. So how are you? In the pandemic, I can't, because I can't pay them.

Before the pandemic came, they tried to kick me out. And the court, she put the eviction, after they gave me the eviction, notice they told me you have court at March, in March, which is the pandemic start pandemic. And since March, I'm living in my apartment and I'm waiting for the court to open. And the procedure will start again to kick me out of my apartment. So even before the pandemic, your sponsorship money had run out. So you were just receiving ODSP at $1,000 a month and your rent was more than that every month. They sent you an eviction notice and then you were supposed to go to court, but the court closed down because of the pandemic.

The court was supposed to be in 15 months. Do you know when the court's going to open up again? Do you know when the court's going to open up again? I don't know, but I don't know what to do if the court opens and they tell me you have to go out of your apartment. This is the biggest problem. You know, I'm in the wheelchair and it's very hard for me to find somewhere else. And I tried before the pandemic and after to search for apartments to rent and I couldn't find something cheap.

What are you going to do now? I don't know what I will do now because I'm having a hard time to see what I can do. Because I think the court will evict me. Even if it takes like one, two, three months, they will evict me anyway. Because of the landlord, they want more money. And especially I'm renting, they consider it now, it's for cheap price. Because now they hired the rent, about $60 more. When did they raise the rent?

In this October. How does this all make you feel? Like you feel when you... I don't know how to say it, but... You feel like you left alone, without any support, without any help. And even the government, if you ask, or you go and protest,

or you speak with one of the MPPs, they will tell you, we are trying to help you, but they know that they are not working to help you. They will tell you, the government, if you speak with them, they will tell you, we put 1,200 apartments. They are affordable. Affordable for what? For what meaning? Affordable for $2,000? Is that what you consider affordable? Hisham, if you get evicted, what do you think will happen to you?

I will be on the street homeless. And I don't know if I can stay on the street homeless. And I don't know if I can stay on the street or I will go back to the war, back to Lebanon. And from Lebanon they don't let me stay because I'm Syrian. They will tell me go back to Syria and I will go back to the war and to everything that's happening there. When you were in the war and trying to leave Syria, how did you imagine your life would be like when you left? I couldn't imagine anything. I just want to leave to see a better life. I imagined my life to be here in Canada

to find work directly because they said it's an accessible country and they are making everything accessible for people. And we care about the handicapped and about the people who are in the wheelchairs or who have disability problems. But what I saw in the reality, it's totally different. And I dream to have a job directly after I come in and they will accept me directly because I have

big experience in working in buying and selling phones and customer service. In phones? Yeah. So what kind of job would you like to do? I don't care what is it, but I just care about having job because I need it, because I need to pay my rent to stay in my apartment. to stay in my apartment. I don't have any problem with the job,

no matter what is it, as much as I can do it. Shem, thank you so much for speaking with me. No problem. I'm really sorry that you're going through this. No, it's okay. I'm really sorry. I always see the good side from it. I will see the good side.

What's the good side to this? The good side that I introduce myself and I know more people. And maybe I will get work soon. I don't know. I'm trying. I'm trying. After we spoke with Hisham, we reached out to Starlight Investments, the commercial real estate firm that owns his apartment building, for a response. Starlight is a massive billion-dollar player in the apartment business with over 400 multifamily properties in Canada. We heard back from Chris Boyce, the CEO of property

management company Greenwood Corp, which manages the Starlight building Hisham lives in, saying via email that while privacy laws prohibit them from commenting on specific cases, the company makes its best effort to work with every tenant who needs assistance during these difficult times and is proud to say it has avoided eviction for hundreds of tenants who have reached out during the crisis. When a solution can't be reached after numerous attempts, the landlord and tenant board can step in as an impartial arbiter, ensuring everyone's rights are protected, Boyce added in that statement. No eviction hearings, he said, have been scheduled for any of their tenants whose arrears were a result of COVID-19 related financial hardship right now. However, the

landlord and tenant board has begun to process notices that were served before the pandemic. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people

and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples.

Hisham isn't the only tenant dealing with the possibility of losing their home and having nowhere to go. People across the country have similar worries. The anxiety is huge. In the summer of 2016, my wife was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer. You know, basically a full year of her going through surgeries, chemo, radiation treatment, etc. And we were in the process of completing all that when we moved into here. And you sit here and you go, okay, now we've got all this stress on us. And you sit there at the back of your head going, stress has a huge impact on one's physical health. And you're always worried about that. Is it going to come back on her for her health?

That's Rick Peterson. He lives in Surrey, BC.C. with his wife in a rented townhouse. And unlike Hisham, they were doing fine before the pandemic. But now they're afraid they'll have to find a new place to live. In British Columbia, the ban on evictions came to an end over the summer. And right now, landlords in the province are required to offer tenants a repayment plan to cover any unpaid rent or utilities that were due at the height of the pandemic between March and August. But there are other ways to lose tenancy. Essentially, what's happened is that a pandemic hit.

My wife, her income was completely sidelined because her line of work was closed due to provincial health orders. We had no income for the first two and a half months of the pandemic. And then it was a very limited amount of money coming back into it. So it put us way behind on our rent. Obviously, the government has made tenants enter into a repayment schedule. The problem that the government did not do is they did not close the back doors to landlords on the repayment schedule. And as such, the landlord has been able to give us a two month move out notice because

they want to quote, use it for their own purposes, their own use, which is just a technicality to remove a tenant from their home. And personally, I think what the government should have done is they should have said, okay, Mr. Landlord, if you want your money back, you waive all claims to the property during this repayment plan so that there's secured housing, and if you want your housing back, then you waive all claims to repayment. It should be one or the other. It can't be both. Rick told us he understands that landlords have also been hit hard during the pandemic, but says there's got to be a better way to solve this problem. He's emailed BC Premier John Horgan and other members of government repeatedly with a message he doesn't

think is getting through. We need to get some dialogue going here because what you're planning is going to devastate thousands of households. And there was zero response. And there was zero proactive efforts made by any level of government. And the question that I've had all the way through this for people is this, is that how does it help the economy when you already have a housing crisis, you have an opioid crisis, and now you're going to take people who were pre-pandemic stable and you destabilize them. What many people are going to end up facing is going to be insolvencies. So after meeting Hisham and hearing these stories, we wanted to get a better sense of why the economic downturn caused by the pandemic is hitting renters so hard and how this could deepen existing inequalities here. I'm joined by Ricardo Tranjan. He's a political

economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Hi, Ricardo. Thanks so much for being here. Hello. Thank you for having me. So listening to Hisham's story and the story of Rick and his family, what stood out to you? Well, sadly, it's not an isolated case. Low income, low wage, precariously employed workers have been hit the hardest by this pandemic. More than half of the jobs lost due to the pandemic were jobs that paid $14 or less. We had temporary eviction bans in most provinces, but they have been lifted, although the pandemic

is not over, although those jobs are not yet back. So now we risk evicting people in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a Canadian winter. And I know that we don't know yet how many people across the country have been evicted since any of these regional bans were lifted. I do want to get a sense from you, how many people in Canada are renters right now? Well, in Canada, we have 15 million households, about 38% or nearly 6 million households, they rent their home in which they live. And who is a typical renter? Can you give me a little bit of a picture? Yes. On average, renters have lower incomes than homeowners. They are more likely to work in the

industry or to have lower paying jobs. They're more likely to be racialized and immigrants. And overall, they are likely to be younger than homeowners, though that is changing now with homeownership becoming increasingly inaccessible. I know that even before COVID-19, tenants in Canada were facing serious challenges with rental prices and availability. And where were things headed before this pandemic hit? So before the pandemic, we already had a situation where year after year, average rent was going up more than inflation, and it was going up more than wages. So rent was consuming a higher and higher share of people's income. So for example, in Ontario, we have 45% of renters paying more than 30% of their total income on shelter costs. And that 30%, it's what we use as a measure of affordability. So 45% of

renters in Ontario, we're paying more than 30%. In British Columbia, it's 43% and so on and so forth. So across the country, we see a very large number of renters paying unaffordable rents. I know that we've been focusing on tenants today, but there are many landlords in Canada who have spoken out about the serious economic challenges facing them during the pandemic. Renters have a right to be protected against bad landlords, but also landlords have a right to be protected against bad renters. And in this case, I have a bad renter.

The government is asking me to provide housing free of charge, and they are handcuffing me. I have no ability to control my own properties. And what's the reality for them? Well, so there is a very broad range of landlords in Canada. And my sense is that sometimes we tend to overemphasize the small landlord, the family or the individual who rents a part of their own home or who only have another, you know, one additional unit and they rent that in order to pay their own mortgage, in order to cover their own family's necessities. That is actually a very small share of all landlords.

Only 4% of homeowners in Canada share a portion of their own homes. So increasingly, what we have in Canada are very large corporations that own thousands and thousands of units. And if you go through recent financial statements, they're doing really well through the pandemic. And they're doing really well because hunters are doing everything they can to pay rent on time. And often they're using most, if not all of the government assistance that they receive to pay rent, sacrificing other needs. government assistance that they receive to pay rent, sacrificing other needs. So essentially, what you're saying today is that we have these typical renters, they're usually making about $14 an hour, they're often from racialized communities.

And they're part of these rental markets with rent that has been outpacing inflation and wages. with rent that has been outpacing inflation and wages. And we have a big portion of rental buildings run by massive profit motivated corporations and investment firms. And then the pandemic hit, and that is hitting hard at people who generally have less savings because rent is taking up such a large portion of their monthly income. And so is it fair to say, is what you're saying here, that the pandemic has really disproportionately affected the renters? It is. It is fair to say in the sense that this is a socially and an economically vulnerable share of the population. And we have not put in place enough supports to help them to go through this pandemic. We have not revisited some of the practices in the market that make them so vulnerable.

Another interesting stat, you know, that renters on average have less than a month worth of savings of income just because there's two sides of the equation. First, they're not earning much. Second, they're spending a lot of what they earn on rent. So yes, it is impacting renters more than others. You mentioned government supports and some government supports that landlords have been able to take advantage of. The government has offered supports to renters. of the government has offered supports to renters. They have halted evictions for periods of time. BC offered a temporary $300 to $500 monthly rent supplement. And, you know, have these policies helped at all? These were good measures. They did help folks to remain housed, help folks to make end meets for this first few months of the crisis. But I think what's important to

remember is first, it's not over. We still have a pandemic and the jobs, especially the lower age jobs, the frontline servicing, those jobs, they're not back yet. We don't know how long they're going to be back. So as far as all the eviction bans and things preventing renters to be thrown out on the streets, I think there's an immediate need to reenact those policies so that people are not thrown on the streets in the middle of the Canadian winter. And as far as the rent market goes, we haven't seen enough rent freezes. We haven't seen enough talk about regulating rents now and moving forward so that they no longer outpace inflation, so they no longer outpace wages, so that they're actually affordable for working class folks. Ricardo, if nothing changes, if these eviction bans aren't reinstated, if we don't start talking

seriously about regulating rents, what do you think could happen as we head into the winter? What happened is that we're going to see increasing number of families being evicted. We're going to see an increasing number of families sacrificing food, winter clothing, medication, sacrificing whatever they have to sacrifice. I have heard, though, the argument from others who say that this wave of evictions is overblown, that essentially the landlords will work to keep people in their homes because they have an incentive to do it, because they're worried there won't be anyone to replace their tenants. And so, you know, what do you make of that argument? I think that is based on a romantic notion of landlords.

Again, based on this notion that the landlord is someone who knows their tenants in person and likes them and bring them muffins once in a while. And it's just not the reality anymore. The reality right now is that we have these large corporations that once the tenant is evicted, they are allowed to increase the rent on that unit by however much they want, because we don't have a thing called vacancy controls. So they actually stand to make money from evicting someone and from replacing that someone with someone who's going to pay up to 10, 15% more rent month after month. So no market incentive to keep tenants housed. There's

a market incentive to push them out. And we see that happening over and over again. Okay. Ricardo, one last question for you before we go today. A lot of economists are talking about a K-shaped economic recovery coming out of the pandemic. This idea that some people are recovering and getting back on track, or they were really not hurt that badly in the first place, while other groups of people are actually declining economically coming out of the pandemic. And how is what's happening with the rental market, in your opinion, an example of that? middle to upper income families that have remained employed and they are spending less on things that they'd like to spend money on, like nice dinners and travels to other countries and so on and forth. They're using that money to pay down their mortgages faster and their capital

is accumulating. And on the other hand, we have the people we've been talking about. We're talking about folks who have low-wage workers, low-wage jobs, who have lost those jobs, who have a hard time paying rent, and now are fearing eviction or are accumulating debt on rents in their years. So it's a great example of how we set it up, the housing market. So on one hand, folks can be secured and continue to accumulate capital. On the other hand, folks are very insecure and starting to accrue debt. Okay, Ricardo Tranjan, thank you so much for taking the time to put this all in perspective for us. Thank you. that's it for today thanks so much for listening to from printer and talk to you again tomorrow For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.