Resolution 22 - Housing Security Need to Improve

CLAUDIA CHENDER: I have some notes here but I do want to take a little bit of time and respond to the comments from the member. I want to start by saying that about a third of the people who live in our province are renters. They don't all live in the HRM. They live in every corner of our province, and they have a special interest in remaining housed. So the idea that renters feel that the Residential Tenancies Program is working is false. I will tell you why. The ministers will get up every time we ask a question about the fixed-term lease loophole, the rent cap, rent control, and they'll say, I wish the members would tell people about Residential Tenancies. Speaker, it's literally all we do.

I challenge any member in this House to talk to us about running workshops with the Dalhousie Legal Aid Service, with housing organizations, to tell people how to navigate the Residential Tenancies system. We do it all day long. Our CAs are more knowledgeable about Residential Tenancies than almost anyone in the province, yet all we hear are challenges. That has nothing to do with the people who work there. It has everything to do with the fact that we have a system that is not responsive to the needs of the people it is supposed to serve.

If the minister wants to respond to my remarks, I would invite him to stand up and do so when I am finished.

THE SPEAKER « » : I think there's a lot of chatter in the room. It's not just one person. I ask that everybody just respect the person who is speaking.

The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

CLAUDIA CHENDER: Thank you, Speaker. The member made an offhand comment that my colleague, the member for Halifax Needham, was focused on members in her constituency and their issues, but there's a larger province, and that's true.

I have visited Harvest House in Windsor, and I've met with Open Arms in Kentville. I've met with Open Doors folks on the South Shore. This is not an HRM problem, and we are acutely aware of this.

I think it's really important, again, that we remember what we're talking about here. I'm so frustrated because there's this idea that it's not a problem. The first step to dealing with a problem is acknowledging that it exists. We heard the member stand up and say: Our plan is working, we're seeing things, we have rent supplements, the Opposition is fearmongering. What we're actually doing is bringing the concerns of our constituents that we have in our offices every single day onto the floor of this Chamber.

There are good programs. The Secondary and Backyard Suite Incentive Program is a good program. That's a great example of how, when we create affordable housing, it has an impact that actually reverberates through lots of different families and residents - when we can move people through housing in the right way.

There are non-market housing programs in whatever the department that was called Housing is called now. They are good programs but they're insufficient. When we talk about housing, when we talk about anything, what we hear is: We invested X amount of money. Our response is always: People's experiences are not reflecting that investment yet.

I really want the government members to hear us when we talk about this issue. What we are saying is that it's a big problem. In particular, I want to talk about this idea of the small landlord. There are lots of small landlords in my community and I know a lot of them. I know that they are having challenges, and I know they feel frustrated by this dialogue a lot of the time.

I also know that the systems we have in place right now - the rent cap, the residential tenancies system as it exists - aren't working for anybody. It's not working for renters, it's not working for landlords, it's not working for anybody. This is why this government commissioned a report to set up an enforcement branch as a first step - because it was something that in general, people seemed to support throughout the housing ecosystem. They spent $300,000. They commissioned a report that told them it's a good idea. We need proactive enforcement. It will cost about $1 million a year. Yet they decided not to do it. We have no real rationale for why not.

Back to this idea that the Residential Tenancies system works: You have to be able to acknowledge that there is a power imbalance between someone who owns a property or properties and someone who rents a single dwelling. That's the basic. There's often a much more dramatic power imbalance with people who, if they lose their housing, have nowhere else to go. If we don't have proactive enforcement, it requires someone to assert their right, if they have it under the Residential Tenancies Act in a legal setting. Not only that, but you have to go to Small Claims Court to enforce that, and it's incredibly difficult.

Back to the small landlord, Dal Legal Aid actually put something out today that says that they did an analysis. It shows that, in fact, most of those claims in Small Claims Court aren't against small landlords. More than half of them are against large corporate landlords. Not only that, but they're for small amounts. So this idea that we have all these bad tenants running around - sure, there's always disputes, and there will be fault that lies on all sides, but the reality is that people are getting evicted.

People are getting evicted, and what this government has done in changing the Residential Tenancies Act is make it easier for people to get evicted. We have been standing here until our faces turn blue asking for rent control, and what do we get? We get an easier eviction regime. It's absurd on the face of it.

That is so challenging for people right now. The tariffs have been imposed. We face an economic downturn. That economic downturn is going to hit families. The most expensive item in a family budget is housing, and we see zero action to support people's capacity to retain and pay for that housing.

Rent control would help, because you wouldn't be tied to an arbitrary cap. You would be able to apply to make the apartment more accessible, per the member's example. You would be able to apply if you needed a new roof. You would, with those extraordinary expenses, be able to raise the rent to cover your costs. You would have a system that works for everyone. No one would probably love it, and that's the hallmark of a great system. It's fair. The system we have right now is not fair.

The evidence is in the number of rent supplements we have. When this government talks about the affordable units they have created, a supplement is not a unit. It isn't. It's a subsidy. It's a subsidy from government, and it's not money well spent because it's money that evaporates. It doesn't turn into equity. It doesn't secure a place. It is important. We need them right now, but we need them because we haven't built enough housing.

To the question of the vacancy signs and the incentives, I would argue that it's because we have overbuilt housing that is too expensive, which is what we have been saying for a long time. The incentives are on units that are $3,000, $4,000, or $5,000 a month. I'm sure they're really nice. I'm sure for the people who can afford them, they can get a deal right now. That's not the housing we're focused on. We're focused on housing for everyday families right across this province. The vacancies for those kinds of units are still disturbingly low.

I just want to be clear. I have heard the new minister talk about the investments in housing and homelessness. Those investments are appreciated. I think there are some good initiatives. I don't think people should live in Pallet Shelters forever. I think that has to be transitional. I think we have to have a plan on the other side of that. I think it's better for people to be indoors than outdoors. I think the tiny homes are a really good idea.

I think we need a lot more manufactured housing that can go up quickly, that people can live in. But the facts are that rents are stubbornly high, that we still have tents across our municipalities and our villages and people sleeping in cars and under bridges. The idea that that's only happening because people are stubborn and don't want to go inside is not fair. We've had that discussion. People want a home, if it's a cot or a tent where you get left alone. I respect some people's choices that they don't want to sleep in a cot in a multi-purpose room.

We have work to do, and this is the point that we're making. We have work to do, and given the economic headwinds that we are facing, given the demonstrable and objective challenges that we have in our housing ecosystem, given the fact that it is now easier to evict people, it is crucial that this government reverse this decision, particularly around evictions. As my colleague said, we have a number of suggestions of how to go forward, but right now we need to make sure that people stay in their homes - Number 1, period. Because no matter what happens, whether we're all billionaires because of the fracking, or whether Trump pulls the tariffs tomorrow, or whether we have other economic development or not, the reality is that right now people are having a hard time staying housed, and right now, the best hedge against the economic challenges coming at us are to help them stay housed. That is what we are asking of this House.

We are asking this because we believe that having safe housing is a right and not a privilege. So we are asking the government to actually take action to ensure that people stay housed. With that, I move to adjourn debate on Resolution No. 22.