Here's a little story about the house at the end of my street.
About 30 years ago, it was a bit of a grow-op, with vicious guard dogs, one that actually ate the leg off the neighbour's family dog! When I'd walk down the street with my kids, we'd always cross the street to avoid walking right past the place.
Then the guy who owned it wanted to buy an RV and leave town for some reason, so he put the place up for sale, and I bought it to fix it up and make the end of the street less sketch.
It was a pretty crazy idea at the time, and sometimes hellish, but I did fix it all up!
It was sold to me as a triplex, but I soon discovered that the basement apartment wasn't legal (and that real estate brokers will tell you any bullshit, and put it in writing even, to sell the house, and they're untouchable if they believe it to be true). Without that third tenant, I wouldn't be able to cover the costs. I went through a whole tribunal process to convince the powerful in the city that the third unit should be legal: one chance to discuss the matter with a collection of six local business owners and bankers in fancy suits (and little me in a sundress) with no appeal permitted. It all hinged on parking: to have three units, we needed parking for three cars, and it couldn't be tandem (in a long driveway) despite that the place is less than a block away from uptown bus routes. I had parking for three, one driveway at the front, and room for two side-by-side at the side of the corner lot, but that side lot wasn't legal because the cars have be able to park behind the house. So, it would be legal if I paved over the backyard. Luckily, I happened to have a photo of the entire street, which showed that everyone parks at the sidewalk end of their driveway instead of further up (mainly to let their kids play more safely in their driveways), so I used a community standards argument and WON!!!
I think it should go without saying that parking availability, particularly given our city's very public push for everyone to take the ION Rail, and particularly in units that are so close to transit, should not be the thing that prevents occupancy of a unit!
Anyway, I made the place really nice on the outside right away, with a lawn in the backyard and trees and a lovely little side garden, and cedar siding on a freshly painted front porch. I built a back deck to make the back door finally usable and cleaned out all the garage so that was also now also finally usable for the tenants. And I fixed up the inside around the people living there or between renters a little at a time. And I shovelled all winter, a corner lot with two big driveways, by 6 am or I'd get a ticket because it fronts on a main street.
I sold it at a a bit of a loss a few years later, but profit wasn't my purpose.
People thought I was an idiot for keeping the price so low. I sold it to a neighbour who I thought would take good care of it, specifically, despite knowing I could get more on the open market. But, alas, he was more interested in profits and let it go a bit on the outside. He did a really bad repainting of the front porch, let weeds and walnut trees take over the garden, and bulldozed the garage without fixing the driveway mess that made, so it started looking a bit sketchy again. He recently sold it for a killing and was applauded for his cunning.
It took him a while to sell at the new price, and I explained it's because the sale price doesn't line up with the rent. There's no way the rent will cover a mortgage at that price, so anyone who buys it, will have to kick people out and jack up the rent or else be essentially paying for tenants to live there! Lowering the price wasn't an option for him despite a more reasonable price still providing a solid profit. "Market value," he said. Everything falls apart, apparently, if you sell below current value. Apparently I just don't understand the economics of it all.
And my prophecy came true.
A lovely couple had lived there long before I had bought it, tolerated all my painting and re-doing the floors and such, and lived there throughout my neighbour's ownership of it. They'd been there well over 20 years. It was their home - the top floor of an older house right uptown. They got "renovicted" as soon as the ink was dry so that the new landlord could jack the price. We all know they won't be able to find anything comparable to the price they were paying, which previously only went up about 2% each year, so their life is in upheaval, possibly leaving them headed for homelessness. They were comfortably able to live on disability until now.
How do people sleep at night?
Ron Butler, the Mortgage Guy blames the Ontario Landlord Tenant Board: He says, for tenants, it sucks because they're allowed to be kicked out for bullshit renovation purposes. And for landlords it sucks because tenants stop paying rent because the rents are so high, and it take months to get an eviction order because it's all backed up. His solution, though, is to hire more people to deal with the backlog. Lots of people keep their homes empty because they're screwed over by tenants not paying, so more places will be on the market if we can make sure it's easier to evict tenants. I haven't been keeping up with the news on this, but apparently there was some money put on the table for this very thing last April. Maybe it wasn't enough.
But I don't think that's the solution.
I understand the quandary landlords are in if they can't pay their mortgage because tenants won't pay. I had a "professional tenant" in one of the units who, apparently, would cyclically move in to a place, pay for a month, and never pay again, and just bide his time knowing it takes months to evict - and this is all before rents went nuts everywhere! But we need a total overhaul of the system that allows places to remain empty while people are living on the streets, and we need to end AirBNBs, and we need rent to be somehow aligned with minimum wage. It's all way too big and overwhelming to even imagine, but it has to start with a focus on every person having an affordable place to live, not with every landlord being able to evict faster.
But this will take a huge cultural shift that recognizes the value of community and caretaking over profit. We're far too steeped in neoliberal policies that celebrate motives that have a huge personal benefit but cause direct or indirect harm to others. We're sometimes able to demonstrate superficial concern by only buying the right products from the right stores, but we're not primed to turn down a windfall that will uproot a handful of families. That's way outside of our social learning capacity at this point in our culture. Acting to benefit others is a completely foreign idea to us now, the mark of a loser.
We're unlikely to see masks promoted in public places ever again. I asked the NDP position on it yesterday, and was chastized just for asking! I was told to "tag a conservative" instead of being given any kind of actual answer, but I did get an immediate response (literally minutes before they announced ousting Jama). It's so politically loaded to do the one thing that will save lives (two things, really - masks and a call for a ceasefire), and we don't have any party with the courage to take it on. Protecting others at a cost to yourself, however minor, proves you're a loser, the public is backing that, so the politicians won't move from it, and I can't imagine what it would take to turn this mindset upside down. It's everyone for themselves to the bitter end.
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