What happened to the Family Home?

Why am I paying enough rent to afford a mortgage, but will likely never be approved for one?

Why have housing prices long rocketed past the threshold of affordability in relation to income?

Why has the government left the problem alone for so long that now people are being priced out of RENTING a home?

I guess many people wouldn’t care either if they could use taxpayer dollars to buy their home, increase their income annually with inflation (as a priority), and pay for their vacations. It’s easy to ignore a problem that isn’t your own.

Families and individuals across Canada have been affected at an increasingly rapid rate by the undue stress, instability, and increasing unaffordability of the housing market that is forcing families into tenancy. Renting a home should not be the norm that it has become, especially for hardworking individuals and families who want to create a basis of stability. Those who own homes and need to upgrade for space, due to having children and raising families, are often unable to do so, regardless of their income and regardless of their credit scores.

We are being told time and again that there is a housing shortage. While this may be partly true, if we’re thinking about increasing the population rather than housing our current one, the real reason for the blatant inequality in housing is right in front of our faces: Housing companies, foreign buyers, and wealthy landlords (or those bent on becoming wealthier) who are snapping up homes as fast as they can. Supply is down, yes, because if one person buys ten homes to rent out, they have removed ten homes from the market; thus, supply goes down, demand goes up, prices go up, and families are forced to stay put (if they own a home) or become renters, who are left prey to the whims of the often-uncaring landlords and never-caring housing companies who treat PEOPLE and FAMILIES as income-generators to be exploited.

There are many reasons people are not having children to keep our population growing – or even stable. This is one of them. 

I was pushed out of my house while five months pregnant in 2022 so that the landlord could raise the rent by a substantial amount. I paid rent on time, but most often early. I was not a disturbance, I did not tear the house apart. I rarely ever disturbed the landlord. I was not a problem renter, by any means. I was simply paying a mortgage that was set to go up with interest rates, and that mortgage wasn’t mine. 

So I had to move. 

I had to give my new landlords $10,000 up front (first and last month’s rent, damage deposit, and one more month rent in desperation to get the house off the rental market) so that I would have somewhere for my toddler, my preschooler, and my unborn child to live. That big chunk of money is what used to be considered a downpayment. I had to use the tax money I owe the government in order to accomplish this. Now my kids have a home and I am unable to pay my taxes – and I will be the one penalized for it. But at least the politicians can use those tax penalties to go towards raising their annual income, again, in 2024.

I know GOOD tenants who are paid surprise visits from their landlord because they “happened to drive by” (fairly regularly), saw chalk on the sidewalk, and decided to do a surprise inspection and question them about the unsightly sign of childhood happiness on the concrete.

I know GOOD tenants who are breastfeeding their babies and their landlords refuse to allow them to put up curtains for privacy, but will agree to put up blinds if the tenants pay half the cost of installing blinds for all the windows – for the home they will have to vacate in six months.

I know GOOD tenants whose landlords have broken the law, but they are too afraid to speak up because they would not be able to afford to move in this market.

And I know there are laws in place to protect tenants from such nonsense. But some don’t have the time, some don’t have the money, and why should we be forced to go to court or take legal action simply to be able to enjoy our homes in PEACE?

These are not homes where people can be comfortable and make happy memories.

These are not homes where people feel comfortable turning a house into a home, because that takes money and time: two things that will inevitably be wasted when they are forced to move again. 

These are not homes where people can plan their next steps to increase their incomes or better their lives.

These are not homes where stability affords parents and children the brain room, outside of “survival mode”, to thrive in school and in the workplace.

These “House Commodities” are one of the single largest destabilizing factors facing us today. People should not have next-to-zero control over one of their primary basic needs.

And what is the government doing about it? Banning foreign buyers for a little while, for someone to blame, until people forget about it? Talking endlessly about battling red tape surrounding building new homes to attack the issue of low supply? Is low supply of housing for the number of residents really the issue? If it were, half the city would be living on the street. The fact that these people are not on the street, but are, in fact, renting means actual physical supply is not low; it has been hoarded by companies and individuals making a profit off of family insecurity.

Our country needs to stop the upheaval of the “family home” in favour of the “house commodity”. The basis for stability and the peaceful rearing of families is being disregarded in favour of those willing to destabilize families to make a buck. The government is supporting this destruction of stability because they are doing absolutely nothing worthwhile to mitigate it. Perhaps because many of them are profiting from it. 

We need to wake the government up from their willful blindness and take responsibility for the destabilization their long-term lack of action is causing. The Bank of Canada constantly raising interest rates is not going to keep these wealthy actors out of the market; it is only going to stop the average person from owning a home themselves and force foreclosures on those lucky enough to get into the market at all. Tenancy laws are not going to offer stability; they are only going to give the illusion of security, until the lease is up or until the landlord wants to move their mother in.

We need the interest rate to stop rising because it is costing landlords more, which costs renters more, and we have reached a point of unsustainability. Just take a look at rental prices across the city.

And then we need rental caps.

And then we need laws that seriously cap house-ownership and number of allowed rentals per person, per household, or something to that effect. Will that anger those who have made their fortunes on rentals? Yes. Of course. But their bad day means nothing to me, someone who simply wants to be able to own ONE home for my children and their well-being.

Politicians should be doing things in the best interest of the nation, not in the best interest of their pockets, or the pockets of those that keep them elected.

THIS IS A FIRST WORLD NATION, so why are we struggling to maintain the basic necessity of STABLE SHELTER?

We renters are “playing house” until our landlord mommies and daddies say we need to move on and play elsewhere so we can give someone else a turn; usually at a higher cost.

Please take the action you can and sign this petition and help put an end to the landlord epidemic.