Annex
Multiple Landlords
Many people in the Annex live in multi-unit homes, rooming houses or small apartment buildings and found themselves easily isolated by their landlords when they were unable to pay rent. While continuing to encourage all tenants to organize themselves in their house or building as a first step, organizers worked to organize across landlords to form an Annex tenant group.
“For us, support has looked like sharing advice, resources, legal information, and setting up a flying squad if landlords choose to show up at our door. On May 1st, we sent a collective letter to each of our landlords stating that we are unable to pay rent and that we are sticking together to deal with harassment from any one of our landlords. We will continue to find tenants who are facing eviction when the LTB opens up through postering and phone calls. For June, we are strategizing ways to ramp up pressure to get our landlords to come to the table.”
Mountrealco and Briarlane
The tenant association at 50 Walmer was created to combat an above-guideline rent increase. Tenants built off this organizing to come together during COVID-19. Members of the association have been working hard to support one another during this difficult time, including help getting groceries and needed medicines, and sending multiple requests to our landlord for rent forgiveness to offset wide scale financial hardship.
“These corporate entities refuse to acknowledge our association as a collective, choosing only to offer individual rent deferral plans under the condition that highly personal and protected employment and income related information be provided. We have been working to protect each other from such invasions of privacy and prevent tenants from having to undertake debt contracts at a time marked with uncertainty.”
