The Need for a Renovictions Bylaw

This article is reprinted from a blog post published January 20, 2025 by the Alliance to End Homelessness.’ Starts With Home Campaign, a member-driven coalition of over 75 organizations working together to end homelessness through systems planning and coordination, public education and advocacy, and mobilization. (see original post here). It is reprinted here with the permission of the organization. To learn more about the The Alliance to End Homelessness you can visit their website by following this link.

On January 14, 2025, we presented to the City of Ottawa's Planning Committee about the proposed municipal renoviction bylaw.

We know that renovictions can lead to homelessness. At minimum, a renoviction means that tenants are forced to find other housing almost guaranteed to be unaffordable in our current housing market.

You can watch or read our full remarks below:

Next week marks the 5 year anniversary of the City declaring a housing and homelessness emergency. Tonight, over 3000 people will be sleeping in an emergency shelter or on the street. Last week, a man died because he was sleeping on the street. 

All of you know the crisis we face. You see people with no home every day -  on your way to work, in doorways, at intersections, in parking lots, and people calling your offices who are about to lose their housing. This crisis is real for you, and you’ve identified affordable housing - the real solution to homelessness - as a top Council priority this term.

We know that renovictions can lead to homelessness. At minimum, a renoviction means that tenants are forced to find other housing almost guaranteed to be unaffordable in our current housing market. While the Residential Tenancies Act has some protections built in for tenants in the case of a renoviction, the policy doesn’t reflect the practical. 

Perhaps a person can find alternative accommodations, for the duration of the renovation, but the unit will likely not be affordable. And none of this covers the cost of multiple moves and displacement. Tenants get the short end of the stick in these scenarios and the consequences can be serious. 

A municipal renoviction bylaw is an opportunity to address these gaps. Ensuring that a permit is obtained in advance of issuing an N13 immediately reduces evictions based on cosmetic changes to a unit - an increasingly common practice. Another element of the bylaw demonstrated in BC is that the municipality informs the tenant about the renovation being done rather than the landlord. This protects tenants from landlords taking advantage of someone who may not know the obscure details of provincial legislation, which frankly, is most of us.

We need to start designing policies that put the onus on the system to protect people, not the person in a crisis.

Landlord Tenant Board data shows renovictions have increased by 545% in Ottawa. Ottawa Acorn has tracked 11 buildings currently in the process of a renoviction. I’ve spoken with government workers, reporters, community partners, even staff on my own team who experienced a renoviction. And none of them reported it. So that 545% increase is likely a drop in the bucket compared to the total number. And each time one happens, we lose more affordable units in our city, adding more stress to our local housing system.

While I appreciate the concerns highlighted by staff in the report, there are some key data points not mentioned that are important to this conversation. 

The first is that we do have early data on the efficacy of a renovictions bylaw. The New Westminster model in BC demonstrated that in the first year of its implementation, renovictions dropped from 333 to 0. That’s a strong start to determining if this type of bylaw can work. 

Other concerns raised are whether the bylaw would conflict with provincial legislation. Again, BC provides some helpful context. The bylaw was challenged by a private company seeking to renovict its tenants in New Westminster. The bylaw was upheld by both the BC court of appeal and the BC Supreme Court. 

While I can appreciate the “wait and see” approach with the province, we will also see many more people lose their housing through illegitimate renovictions if current trends continue. The human cost is too great to waste time. 

This past week, we learned through a recent Association of Ontario Municipalities report that cities pay 51% of the cost for homelessness in their communities. This is not only unfair, it’s impossible. The least resourced level of government is left holding the bag, while upper levels of government abdicate their responsibility to invest properly in solutions for the housing and homelessness crisis. We strongly support the City’s advocacy to push the provincial and federal government to step up in a serious way.

But, a lack of funding isn’t an excuse for not taking action on the things we can control. Doing nothing, or waiting until we have every piece of information before making a decision is also abdicating responsibility. 

Stopping homelessness before it starts, stopping the loss of affordable housing is as critical as building new affordable housing. Stopping illegal or unnecessary renovictions before they happen is one key tool in our prevention toolbox and we’d be short-sighted to exclude it.

This is an opportunity to show leadership in our collective commitment to end homelessness. Let’s respond to the crisis with the urgency it deserves, and move forward with this motion. We have more tools than we think we do when it comes to ending homelessness. Let’s use them.

The Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa is a member-driven coalition of over 75 organizations working together to end homelessness through systems planning and coordination, public education and advocacy, and mobilization.