Landlords of Toronto
The COVID Eviction Report:
How to End the Eviction Crisis
Who are Toronto’s landlords, really?
Landlord lobbying groups have been pushing stories about the hardships faced by ‘Mom and Pop’ landlords. The truth is that real ‘Mom and Pop’ landlords make up less than 3% of Canadian households. With record profits and inflated rents, most rental units are owned by multi-million dollar firms backed up by significant legal and political forces.
While landlords brag about 2019 being “yet another record year” with “solid increases in all key performance benchmarks”, tenants across Toronto are fully aware of where those record profits come from.
Every year, being a tenant in Toronto becomes more financially difficult. In April of 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the average Toronto rent for a lease signed on a one-bedroom apartment was $2213. The increasing profits of a handful of corporate landlords leads directly to increasing financial hardship for Toronto’s 750,000 tenant households.
How much are Toronto tenants supposed to sacrifice so that these corporations can continue to have record breaking years?
As Minto CEO and President Michael Waters explained, "we capitalized on strong rental market conditions in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal during the first quarter of 2020, generating solid growth in all of our key financial metrics.” With 3 million jobs lost across Canada, tenants are struggling to make rent. Meanwhile, these landlords face no economic challenges at all. “Obviously, the economic outlook shifted very significantly in March due to the impact of COVID-19. Fortunately, the REIT has a strong financial position, with current liquidity, as at May 5, 2020, of $198.5 million through a combination of cash on hand and availability on our credit facility... The financial impact from the virus has not been material to the REIT to date.”
While public relation firms hired by these landlords wax poetic about struggling ‘Mom and Pop’ landlords, the landlords themselves express clearly that they are financially viable enough to forgive rents during this pandemic. In fact, they will still be producing historically unprecedented profits. Instead of “working with [their] tenants during this difficult period" as they claim, landlords are pressuring tenants to direct all of their CERB money into landlords’ bank accounts.
Find out more about the people and finances behind the corporations.
Landlords think that Canadians have it too easy. Starlight CEO Daniel Drimmer posits that after economic crises, Canadians should, “tighten our belts and copy the US. Canada must become more efficient.” He wonders, “can it be that the Canadian workforce … have got complacent and used to the comfortable life?”
Tenants of Toronto
Who are Toronto’s tenants, really?
The Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) has been lobbying on behalf of landlords in Ontario for 35 years.
Most major landlords in Toronto are FRPO members. Their member landlords have been told what tenants need to make it through this crisis: no repayment plans and no evictions. But so far, their only response has been to repeatedly demand rent payments and to issue notices of eviction.
FRPO and Conservatives back bill to weaken tenants’ rights.
On May 27 in the Ontario legislature, Bill 184 ironically titled "Protecting tenants" passed second reading 56-18. This bill was first introduced in March before the shutdown. Landlords and the government had this in the works long before that. This bill solidifies a position that has been long held by organizers: the Landlord and Tenant board (LTB) cannot be relied on for the protection of tenants. Repayment plans will leave us saddled with debt and more at-risk for eviction in the future. This bill does not affect the current eviction moratorium. And only furthers the need for tenants to organize with their neighbours, withhold their rent collectively and escalate actions against landlords and the government until the needs of tens of thousands of Toronto tenants are heard.
“We’re all in this together!'“ displayed on window of CAPREIT head office.
As Canada is expected to enter a recession (or worse), landlords are poised to continue making a fortune from the Toronto rental market. Their investment strategy focuses on deepening the crisis tenants face in Toronto and exporting it to every available rental market in Canada. Corporate landlords view COVID-19 as an opportunity but for tenants it may be a tipping point. Landlords and tenants are not “in this together”.
Their fortunes are made at our expense.
