Troubling New Stats Shed Light on Housing and Eviction in Halifax
HALIFAX–Nearly every Haligonian knows someone struggling to find affordable rental housing. Many are even struggling to remain in the homes they have rented for years, thanks to renovictions and fixed-term leases.
But it can be difficult to find exact numbers to quantify the problem being felt by the most vulnerable. This week, however, Dalhousie Legal Aid released important stats on the people it has helped over the past 10 months.
Since September of 2022, staff and law school students have met with more than 200 households, 91 per cent of which were seeking help with residential tenancies issues. More than 70 per cent of those households had a monthly income of less than $2,100, suggesting the housing crisis is, unsurprisingly, hitting the poorest people the hardest.
Until September of 2022, Dalhousie Legal Aid used to only deal with residential tenancy issues half of the time. The other half of its time and resources were used for income assistance issues. Now, the housing crisis dominates the small team’s energy. The two community legal aid workers on staff juggle 20-30 cases at a time, with eight to fifteen students helping.
Of utmost concern is that nearly half of the people seeking help from Dalhousie Legal Aid were facing eviction.
“The thing that was really surprising was the number of people who were coming to us because they were facing eviction, whether that’s a renoviction, or an eviction for another reason,” said community legal aid worker Joanne Hussey.
“When you look at the number of people who are actively homeless, which as of July 4 was 923 people, I believe, in Halifax, a lot of those folks are being evicted into homelessness.”
In a press release, Dalhousie Legal Aid chastised the Nova Scotia government for how hard it is to find public information regarding residential tenancy issues.
“The government’s open data site provides details about bingo licenses issued by Service Nova Scotia but nothing about the number of Residential Tenancies applications,” said Hussey. “I think we have all been frustrated by the lack of hard numbers concerning Residential Tenancies issues we and others have been raising over the past year. We are working to fill that gap where we can.”
The legal aid team was also able to shed more light on a hotly debated topic: fixed-term leases. Some have argued that these leases have only caused a handful of problems for tenants in Halifax. But Dalhousie Legal Aid says 30 per cent of its clients with having residential tenancy issues were on fixed-term leases.
“When we’ve raised [fixed-term leases] with the government, they have said that they don’t have numbers and that it’s just a few landlords who might be doing that [to skirt the rent cap],” said Hussey. “But 30 per cent of all the people we talked to had fixed-term leases. So that’s a pretty big chunk of people. It’s helpful for us to be able to go and say ‘no, actually, this is more significant than just a small number.’”
Fixed-term leases have caused confusion in Halifax. It is widely believed that the rent cap doesn’t apply when fixed-term leases are used. But that’s not true. If a landlord chooses to renew a fixed-term lease with a current tenant, they can not go above the two per cent rent cap. The problem is that landlords can choose to simply not renew, and not have to give a tenant a reason.
The landlord can then rent the unit to new tenants at full market value. Some tenants have been told by landlords that they will either have to pay above the rent cap, or their lease will be terminated at the end of the term.
“So the way that it gets around the rent cap is it just means that they can ask you to leave and then sign a new fixed term lease with a different person,” explained Hussey. “And make the rent whatever they would like. The tricky part is the non-renewal.”
“The issue is that tenants don’t have any bargaining power in that situation, if the landlord doesn’t have to give a reason for not renewing the lease.”
There are fears that Halifax will become a city where fixed-term leases are more prominent, which reduces housing security. But some have defended the practice. Earlier this year Huddle spoke to a landlord who specializes in student housing. Halifax has thousands of post-secondary students, and for many, a year-long lease would be a burden since most students leave during the summer.
Despite the depressing and sobering stats being revealed around housing insecurity in Halifax, there have been some bright spots for those fighting for tenants’ rights. Just recently, a residential tenancy officer ruled that a landlord on Primrose Street could not renovict 17 people from an entire building, many of whom were paying less than $700 in rent, and would have likely been forced to couch surf or be on the streets if they lost the case.
“I think that the Primrose case is important for a couple of reasons,” said Hussey. “It’s one of the first times that we have seen a whole building be threatened with eviction and then be represented to successfully challenge that eviction.”
“And I think the reason that feels important is that we’ve had other clients come to us and say they saw those news articles and realized that they had rights.”
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].