Two sisters were shocked when a Toronto landlord raised their rent by $7,000 per month.

The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.

“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.

  • Xavier
    11·
    1 year ago

    I wonder if there are information or anonymised statistics regarding the portion of elected representatives, senators and members of the judiciary from municipal, provincial and federal bodies/institutions that own more than a property (principal residence).

    How many properties? What type of properties (from residential single family to high rise residential appartments/condominium, from empty/rundown/abandoned farmhouses/buildings to unused farm/land, etc…) What purpose do they have for those properties? Do those properties generate some kind of revenue? If so, how much? How is the revenue generated?

    While thinking about it, how much of all properties in Canada are tied up behind a corporate veil by companies/fondations/trusts and various legal entities? Are there statistics on that?

    There are too many unknowns and legal protections behind those unknown to be able to make a clear picture of the housing crisis.

    I don’t want the scapegoat excuse of too much RED TAPE to build new housing or that IT’S THE IMMIGRANTS and the FOREIGN WORKERS or FOREIGN INVESTORS/SPECULATORS took all our housing. That’s too easy of a excuse to avoid the real and difficult work of understanding this whole mess.

    I want real data, not proxy data. Full information on every transfer of property; from whom to whom, by which financial institution, for exactly how much, timespan elapsed between transfer of ownership, who is the mortgage holder if a loan is involved, renovation details if there has been any, every inspection report and details should always be public and attached to the property for the life of the property as a historical snapshot of the property, etc…

    It’s not that hard to implement these data gathering services but there are always deeply vested interests that would do everything in their power to discourage such endeavors and make up any excuse to avoid providing it.

    Anyways, sorry this became a long rambling rant on my part.