Over the years NLS has been involved in many cases involving compulsive hoarding in a housing context, and we have learnt first hand the difficulty and complexity of such matters, as well as of the dearth of resources available to hoarders and their advocates. Today, compulsive hoarding is increasingly part of the public consciousness. Yet this complex issue is often reduced to garish portrayals on reality television or to stereotypical depictions in the media when recounting the actual or potential health and safety risks of such compulsive behaviour.

The Non-profit Housing Co-operatives Statute Law Amendment Act, 2013 (Bill 14) unanimously passed Third Reading on September 24, and received Royal Assent on September 26. The main feature of the Act is that it amends the Co-operative Corporations Act and the Residential Tenancies Act to allow co-op housing evictions to proceed at a statutory tribunal, the Landlord & Tenant Board, rather than before the courts. It is expected that the amendments will come into force within a period of 6 to 9 months, giving the Landlord & Tenant Board the opportunity to absorb the influx of new cases. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has itself anticipated a significant increase in co-op eviction cases that will be heard by the Landlord & Tenant Board.

This year NLS is marking its 40th year of providing legal services to the low income residents of Toronto’s downtown east side. Only a few in the community now will recall that day in 1973 when the clinic opened its door in a house on Seaton Street. While the community has changed and continues to change in what is really a process of continual renewal, the basic legal needs the clinic addresses have not changed much. Fighting through the Courts and Tribunals, through law reform campaigns and through outreach and public legal education for better and more secure housing, better and more secure incomes and more secure status in Canada for immigrants and their families has been the mainstay of our work throughout the past 4 decades. 

In a lengthy 52 page decision released on Friday, September 6, Mr. Justice Thomas Lederer of the Superior Court of Ontario dismissed the landmark ‘Right to Housing’ case that had been brought by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO) and other housing and homelessness advocates.

The following blog is provided courtesy of John Bonnar and rabble.ca. You can find the original, which appeared in rabble.ca on June 4, 2013, by clicking here. 

When Sacha Proctor received a notice from his landlord that his rent would increase 17.6 per cent on May 1, he tried to move to a similar unit with a lower price tag in the same building.

“But they refused to meet with us,” he said. 

“The refused to tell us why we got the high increase, refused to let us transfer to a cheaper unit or what other similar units were renting for.”

The following blog is provided courtesy of the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO)

(Toronto) June 6, 2013 – Tenant advocates call for change at Canada’s largest social housing landlord in response to a damning evidence of mistreatment of senior tenants contained in a report introduced this morning by the City of Toronto Ombudsman, Fiona Crean.

“The Ombudsman found Toronto’s most vulnerable continue to be afraid of losing their home,” said Grace Pluchino from Downsview Community Legal Services. “Everyone has the right to housing and TCHC has the right to collect the rent, the point in which we disagree is how they go about rent collection – which does not maintain the tenants’ dignity.”

On February 27, 2013, the Ontario Government reintroduced the Non-Profit Housing Co-operative Statute Amendment Act, 2013 as Bill 14. In May the Bill passed second reading and has gone to the Standing Committee. With cross-party support from the NDP and the PCs, the Bill is expected to pass into law fairly quickly.