Yesterday the tenant activists were posting ridiculous graphics on Twitter. I was completely mystified... this is Canada wide, and the tenants are angelic, only 8% reported they were evicted for non-payment of rent. This is from STATS CANADA who you would expect would do some work to check their numbers.
The more I thought about it, the more it upset me.
How is this possible, in my entire career, some of it managing rental buildings I have been issuing N-4's constantly. The number one reason for evictions is Non Payment of rent. Tens of Thousands of N-4's at least maybe more. The Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board agrees with me too. Look at the number of L-1 (Non-payment) filings...
Yet the other reasons for filing applications at the Landlord and Tenant Board is fairly stable.
So then I asked myself, "How can I be so Wrong?" this is Stats Canada ? 5% to over 60% that's a major gap and it turns out that Stats Canada and all the provincial governments that rely on data are relying on self reports from evicted tenants on why they were evicted.
And so in conclusion the government is dumber than a bag of bricks and this is why we can't have nice things. How can you develop policy about evictions when you don't have clue about why people are getting evicted?
So a lot of you are probably asking, well Rachelle, That's Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, and this is Canada wide. Ontario is 34% of Canada by population, and even if not one other person in Canada was evicted for Non-Payment of rent, that would still amount for 24% of all evictions IN CANADA. (Mathematics according to Mat)
Government listen to me... people are mostly getting evicted for non-payment of rent. Some tenants just live that way and you can't really change it. Some people are making bad choices and decisions... and continuing to make bad choices about where their money goes. Some people are losing their jobs, and having a hard time. Quite a few people can't afford rent at all, despite making good choices, sometimes they're just old, and on a pension.
I'm in Ontario, so I can really only discuss those numbers, but with affordability being what it is, it's creating a lot of problems. I would suggest if you do want to prevent evictions, monthly rent subsidies would be highly effective, more rent bank. Tenants are our clients and if you help them, you help us, Landlords aren't spending that money on beer, we're paying mortgages and trades and doing our best.
For god's sake Stats Can, look at the numbers of eviction cases filed in all the other provinces, you have people who do these things. It's not that hard, don't rely on self reports fro landlords or tenants... that's bad data, bad science and we need you to do a better job. We desperately need to improve housing and we need good data to allocate resources properly.
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