Some landlords are still discriminating
August 30, 2008
Jennifer Brown Special to the Star
Finding decent, affordable rental accommodation isn't easy at the best of times, but throw in sexual harassment, discrimination against sexual orientation and single mothers with kids and some members of society have it tougher than others.
That's what Ontario Human Rights Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall discovered last summer when she listened to people in four cities talk about their experiences with landlords and human rights violations.
"Some of the most blatant and demeaning situations involved transgender people in a very in-your-face kind of discrimination, and in more subtle ways often it was based on race," says the former mayor of Toronto, who last month released a report titled Right at Home: Report on the Consultation on Rental Housing and Human Rights.
Single mothers on social assistance and aboriginal single mothers topped the list of those who said they had been denied housing. Immigrants raised concerns about being asked to provide guarantors or pay rent deposits of up to 12 months rent.
Despite Toronto's relatively high vacancy rate, Hall says vulnerable groups are still struggling to find affordable housing.
"We hear stories about people being discriminated against because of race; their Caucasian friends make an appointment to see the same apartment and are offered the unit," Hall says.
Calling the findings "depressing," she says they underline the fact that there is still work to be done to "educate and penalize those who don't rent to certain people."
The number of actual complaints filed against landlords in Ontario is relatively low – about 4 per cent or 90 of the 2,399 complaints received by the Human Rights Commission in Ontario last year – but Hall says formal complaints often aren't filed because the affected individuals, often desperate for a place to live, ignore the complaint process so that they can put all their energy into finding a home.
The Right at Home report was based on public consultations held in June 2007, when Hall travelled from Toronto to Kitchener-Waterloo, Sudbury and Ottawa to hear first-hand the experiences people faced in their quest for affordable rental accommodation.
"In Sudbury, where there is a real housing shortage, we heard some of the issues that go with a virtually zero vacancy rate. The people in the most vulnerable groups are being denied housing there," she says.
And even though Toronto has a higher-than-normal vacancy rate, a loss of lower-cost units means the problem still exists here.
As she pedals her bicycle around the city these days, Hall says she has noticed For Rent signs in places that rarely had vacancies before. The difference is that as landlords have invested in renovations to try attract higher-paying tenants, the lower rent accommodation has been lost.
"We've lost a lot of the low end of the market," says Hall.
Even more shocking to Hall was the number of sexual harassment incidents she heard about.
"It was very upsetting to hear from a large number of women who are harassed – many of them single moms with children and on low income – by landlords or agents of landlords who asked for sexual favours in order to get repairs done to apartments," says Hall.
The solution is not an easy one, but both the Commission and the Federation of Rental-Housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) say they want to improve landlords' understanding of the Human Rights Code.
"Like everything related to housing, it's complex," Hall says. "We know the vast majority of landlords want to comply with the Human Rights Code, they want clear information about what it means and some may want clarification on what Duty to Accommodate means."
Representing landlords at the launch of the report was Vince Brescia, president and CEO of the Federation of Rental-Housing Providers of Ontario, which represents 800 large landlords and property managers in the province that supply about 250,000 housing units.
The FRPO discussed a code of practice for dealing with tenants that it is developing for its members.
Last November the FRPO launched the Certified Rental Building Program, which requires adherence to the Human Rights Code as a standard of practice.
"It's a challenging business," says Mike Chopowick, manager of policy with the FRPO.
"As an industry we're trying to be proactive and educate our members. We want them to understand if they have tenants with disabilities that they make sure they are being accommodated. A lot of it is common sense – the vast majority of landlords out there are upholding the Human Rights Code.''
Discrimination based on income is another area Hall says needs to be addressed. She says landlords should not rule out an applicant based on their salary statements only.
"It's OK to ask people for the names of previous landlords and to get references. The problem is when people ask for income information and draw inferences that because people are low income they are unlikely to pay their rent. That's no more an indicator than anything else.
``We know some people go to great efforts and use virtually all their income to pay their rent. They may have to go to food banks to feed themselves, but paying the rent is the first priority," she says.
While the FRPO represents large landlords and property managers in the province, there is also the question of whether landlords are renting out their basement or other part of their home.
"I think we can work with the municipalities in getting the word out to those people who provide an important resource to tenants," she says.
For now, the commission is meeting with the various players and is working on a formal policy in terms of the interpretation of the sections of the Human Rights Code dealing with housing and working on ways it can assist groups to address some of the issues.
When a complaint is made against a landlord, the first process is mediation. Often there will be settlement fairly early on, with either the problem being addressed or some kind of remedy for the complainant such as monetary, or an apartment, or a combination of the two.
Toronto Star