Montrealer Concerned over State of Housing

Rents are increasing, renovictions are becoming more common and Airbnbs continue to pose a threat to lon-term affordable housing in Montreal.

Montreal renter Gavin Armitage-Ackerman spoke with Local 514 about housing and intimidation tactics used by landlords in Montreal.

"I live in dilapidated apartment," said Armitage-Ackerman. He said he came across an article about housing in Montreal and the photo used for the article was a photo of his broken front door. He said it's been broken for a long time and the landlord refuses to fix it.

"You have to pick your battles," he said, adding that he pays cheap rent in the Mile End – a neighbourhood increasingly experiencing rapidly rising rent. 

The Tribunal administratif du logement, or the TAL, which supervises Quebec’s residential rental market recommended landlords to increase the rent by 2.3% this year due to the rising cost of living. 

But are landlords using other methods to raise the rent?

Armitage-Ackerman said that rent control isn't enforced between lease holders, so if a tenant leaves and a new one comes, a landlord can raise the rent to any price they want. He said that landlords are supposed to show you the highest paid rent on a unit in the last year. He encourages tenants to ask for a copy of the former lease when considering to sign on a new place. "If a landlord raised rent $300 between the last lease, you can contest that."

He said that evictions are a method used to push tenants out of units in order to raise the rent.

"Parc-Extension had 120 evictions in last year," said Armitage-Ackerman. "There are high proportion of low income renters."

"There are certain loopholes that [a landlord can] abuse," he said. He listed renovictions, which happens when a landlord evicts a tenant on the premise of a renovation. But renovations aren't always carried out. "The city rarely enforce this," he said.

He also mentioned that landlords can evict you if they have family who wants to move into their unit or the landlord themselves wants to move in.