With the COVID-19 pandemic surging and hundreds of new cases every day in the province, Dominica McPherson, coordinator of the Guelph & Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination, believes now is not the time to move forward with residential evictions.
“We know that one of the best ways that we can keep ourselves and others safe from COVID-19 is to stay home. If we’re evicting people during this unpredictable time, ultimately people can’t stay home if they don’t have a home,” McPherson said.
“The pandemic is still ongoing and so is that financial insecurity.”
Evictions were essentially put on hold earlier this year, in response to the pandemic, but are once again being enforced. Recently, the Ontario Real Estate Association and the Guelph & District Association of Realtors urged the provincial government to take steps to clear the backlog of cases and get eviction hearings back up to speed.
Prior to the pandemic, McPherson said, many people in Guelph were already living paycheque to paycheque. Their financial straits have been made worse, especially for those in low-wage jobs, by reduced hours or layoffs as well as illness.
“People are experiencing unexpected hardships,” she said. “This is really being compounded by what is an already existing affordable housing crisis and skyrocketing rents (in Guelph).”
She’d like to see the ban of eviction enforcements return at least through the pandemic, calling its return “unfair” and “dangerous” to tenants who are struggling financially.
“The vacancy rate is very low in our community,” McPherson added, citing a 2019 Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation report that pegs the vacancy rate at 1.9 per cent. As a result, that leaves evicted tenants with “very few options” available to them.
“Our community has made some significant strides in recent years in eliminating homelessness” and she worries a wave of evictions could reverse those efforts.
“In 2019, Guelph-Wellington reduced homelessness by close to 30 per cent. The pandemic has already caused a rise in homelessness. The reinstatement of evictions will make things worse, propelling vulnerable people who are already experiencing a financial crisis into a homelessness crisis as well,” she said in a follow-up email.
Anthea Millikin, executive director of the Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County, shares that concern. The clinic offers free legal advice to tenants facing eviction or other issues.
With eviction hearings ongoing, virtually, she’d like to see the process that sees adjudicators consider the impact of eviction and potentially implement a relief plan. Such plans can set out an agreement to pay rent in arrears while remaining in the home.
“When the eviction for arrears has to do with COVID or when the person is at greater risk or the community might be at greater risk from a public health perspective, that would be taken into consideration and allow the tenant to remain,” she said. “What we’re asking is that time (for payment of rent in arrears) be extended given the fact that we’re still in the middle of a pandemic, there’s still economic hardship.”
She also raised a red flag regarding the virtual or telephone eviction hearings that are taking place.
“We have concerns around tenants who are not fully participating in the process because of barriers that exist,” she said, referring to access to the necessary equipment such as a phone, computer and internet service. “It is what it is right now because of the pandemic.”
