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Citizens With Disabilities – Ontario (CWDO) is committed to the rights of all persons to participate fully in the civil, cultural, economic, political and social life of their communities.

Housing Consultations

Ontario housing consultations are taking place over the next couple of months.  Hopefully some people can attend the ones in their area.


PLACES AND DATES
  • Sault Ste. Marie – June 16, 2009
  • Peel region – June 29, 2009
  • Windsor – July 15, 2009
  • Kitchener-Waterloo – July 16, 2009
  • Scarborough – July 21, 2009
  • Toronto (downtown) – July 22, 2009
  • Ottawa – July 27, 2009
  • London – September 8, 2009
  • Hamilton – September 10, 2009
  • Lindsay – September 17, 2009
  • Sudbury – September 24, 2009
  • Thunder Bay – September 30, 2009
There's more information at http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/Page6395.aspx
There's also an online questionnaire and they are allowing submissions until December 31, 2009.

Resource documents:

Top 10 Reasons Why Tenants Need to be at the Provincial Consultations 

  1. Tenants comprise 40% of Ottawa households.

  2. Tenants pay 1.7% more in property taxes through their rents than homeowners of comparable units, even though tenants have approximately half the income.

  3. Ottawa loses an average of 100 rental units annually though demolitions and conversions.

  4. There were more than 69,000 eviction applications filed at the Landlord and Tenant Board in 2008, mostly tenants struggling to pay unfair rents.

  5. Rental units built after 1991 are exempt from rent control. Market rate units in social housing are also exempt from rent control.

  6. In the mid 1990’s, the Provincial Government cancelled funding to tenant advocacy groups. In Ottawa, we lost the Federation of Ottawa Carleton Tenants Associations, The Ottawa Council of Low Income Support Services, and the Ottawa Tenant Council.

  7. Landlords are well organized through organizations such as the Ottawa Region Landlords Association, Eastern Ontario Landlords Organization, and the Fair Rental Policy Organization. Tenants have no formal structure to have their voices heard. This creates an imbalance during consultation processes.

  8. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the local vacancy rate is 2.7 per cent. Analysts agree that a ‘healthy’ vacancy rate is 3 per cent. Without rent control on vacant units, landlords can charge whatever they want since tenants have less choice. This also means landlords have more incentive to evict or coerce tenants to move out as a means to raise rents even higher.

  9. Since 1995, only 9% of new housing built was rental housing.

  10. When the vacancy rate rises above 3% for two consecutive years, landlords can apply to have rental units converted to condominiums. During the period of 2004 and 2005, when the vacancy rate rose above 3 per cent, there were 681 conversions of rental units to condominiums.