Housing Reform
Housing reform aims to create a more equitable and sustainable housing system that meets the needs of all residents.
Support for Vulnerable Populations
Providing housing and related support services for individuals and families at risk of homelessness, including students, seniors, people with disabilities, and equity-deserving communities.
Changes to Social Housing Tenant Ledgers
Currently, tenant ledgers only state charges and other fees that have been charged to a household. For Rent-Geared-to-Income (RGI) households, tenant ledgers do not include anything about how the housing provider calculated each month’s specific RGI rental rate. This needs to change. Tenant ledgers should:
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be issued to RGI households at least annually. It is insufficient to require tenants to request their tenant ledger.
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provide a financial breakdown of how each month’s rent was calculated. These calculations should be simple, as the “new” Ontario Regulation 316/19 “Determination of Geared-to-Income Rent under Section 50 of the Act” under the Housing Services Act, 2011, (“HSA”) implemented in 2020, was implemented to simplify calculations.
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include two new columns. The first new column should state the balance owing or the outstanding balance for the month. The second column should state the total balance owing or outstanding balance for the year. If rent was not paid in full, or if rent was overpaid, the overpayment or “underpayment” needs to be carried over to the next month, so tenants can clearly see how much they owe, or how much they’ve overpaid. This practice can also prevent housing providers from issuing reimbursements. If a tenant is aware they’ve overpaid their rent, they can simply choose to stop making rent payments until their balance is back down to zero.
Addressing Issues Raised by Tenants
Tenants must be able to submit complaints, or “raise issues” with their housing services provider.
This ‘complaints procedure’ or ‘raising of issues’ procedure needs to be monitored by a third-party (not the housing services provider or the County of Simcoe). This service should be provided via an online platform, such as a website or an app. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has implemented this due to its history of failing to fix and/or repair maintenance issues.
It is inevitable that when issues are raised tenants will continue to be ignored and/or not be dealt with appropriately. There needs to be a governing body of some sort that has the authority to intervene when social housing providers in the County of Simcoe, continue to fail in their obligations to address issues raised by tenants. Furthermore, this “intervener” needs to have the authority to compel social housing providers to do something or to not to do something. For example, if a tenant believes they’ve been overcharged, and their housing services provider refuses to provide a financial breakdown of how their rent was calculated, this intervener needs to be able to force the housing provider to produce the financial breakdown of the tenant’s rental calculations. This proposed intervener cannot be excused by saying it doesn’t have jurisdiction to compel the housing provider to produce documents.
Furthermore, this proposed intervener needs to have the authority to invoke sanctions on social housing providers if it fails to adhere to the intervenor’s directions. This intervener cannot have the authority to create policies that prevent them from looking at issues that occurred prior to the last 12 months either, such as the County of Simcoe’s Policy #2016 - NP - 08 - Internal Review Process, which was implemented by the County of Simcoe regarding tenants’ requests for internal reviews under section 156 of the HSA. Barrie Housing has a demonstrated history of withholding and misrepresenting material facts from tenants and the County of Simcoe has a demonstrated history of assisting Barrie Housing in violating laws (the HSA and the Residential Tenancies Act) and contracts (the Service Manager Delegation Agreement). If a tenant becomes aware of a miscalculation several years after the fact, the intervener can’t decide to ignore the potential miscalculation because “too much time has passed”.
Pursuant to Article 16 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: 2. In order to prevent the occurrence of all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse, States Parties shall ensure that all facilities and programmes designed to serve persons with disabilities are effectively monitored by independent authorities.
Tenant Advocate: The Tenant’s Advocate of the County of Simcoe
The objectives of the proposed Tenant’s Advocate would be:
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To provide for closer communications and closer relationships between management and tenants.
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To work to improve security, maintenance, surveillance and other matters of concern to tenants.
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To help create a sense of community amongst tenants.
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To assist individual tenants who have a particular problem in being heard by management and/or tenants so that solutions can be identified and tried.
The purpose of the proposed Tenant’s Advocate would be to ensure that every tenant “has rights in the building”. The proposed tenant advocate needs to specialize in mental health law, human rights law and tenancy law.
Social housing providers should be assigned a general practitioner or registered nurse practitioner to provide family health services to tenants, and to assist housing services providers’ staff in recognizing mental health disabilities.
Trauma-Informed Training
Social housing services providers’ staff must be required to take trauma-informed training. Pursuant to Article 4(1) of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: States Parties undertake to ensure and promote the full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all persons with disabilities without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability. To this end, States Parties undertake: i. To promote the training of professionals and staff working with persons with disabilities in the rights recognized in this Convention so as to better provide the assistance and services guaranteed by those rights.
BARRIE HOUSING EVICTIONS & DEATHS
July 2021 - September 2024
Cause of Vacancy data was not provided for all of 2020, January to April 2021, June 2023, November 2023 or June 2024 because Barrie Housing "can't find it", which is a breach of contract. Vacancy data for October to December 2024 did not exist at the time of this request.
BARRIE HOUSING TENANT TRANSFERS & RELOCATIONS
May 2021 - September 2024
This infographic shows tenant transfers, internal transfers and relocations (not including out-of-province relocations) data for the period of May 2021 to September 2024. Please note, this infographic does not include data for all of 2020, or data for the months of June 2021, November 2023, or June 2024 because Barrie Housing “can’t find it”.
LARGEST PROJECTS
SMALLEST PROJECTS
MOST MOVES
Moves are the combined number of transfers, internal transfers and relocations (not including out-of-province relocations).
This data tells us that tenants who live at the smallest projects have a significantly higher liklihood of having their request to transfer granted. One would think that the smallest projects would have the fewest moves but nope.
LEAST MOVES
Interestingly, Coulter Glen is Barrie Housing’s largest housing project of their 14 projects, with 125 households but in the last three years, no tenants relocated. Only one tenant was granted permission to transfer internally and only two tenants were granted permission to transfer externally.
Housing Remains a Barrier to Leave Domestic Abuse and / or Trafficking
Without trauma-informed training, Municipal Service Managers hold pejorative attitudes based on strongly held views about the appropriate capacities or limits of its below market-rate tenants. This discrimination is motivated by an intentional desire to obstruct tenants’ potential, which perpetuates disadvantage among them. The actions of Municipal Service Managers in the County of Simcoe have perpetuated and promoted the view that its RGI tenants are less capable and less worthy of recognition and value as human beings and as members of Canadian society.
Since Municipal Service Managers don’t think vulnerable people deserve livable households, they’ve established substandard housing services and procedures for them.
As a result, housing remains a barrier to victims of domestic abuse and trafficking.
