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Human Rights Tribunal Requests More Info & Ombudsman Calls for Update

On March 27, 2025, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) emailed me with a Notice of Incomplete Application, in which it requested that I provide more complete answers for three questions in my application for reprisal against Barrie Housing:


For the section 8 question: What remedies are you asking for and explain how you calculated this amount, I started researching similar cases so I could find out what I should be asking for. I only found one case in all of Canada in which the tenant was successful, Gricken v Andriano, 2017 HRTO 698, and I wasn’t able to find any other cases where a public housing tenant filed a human rights application alleging eviction as reprisal, and in which the application wasn’t dismissed.


Wow. That’s super concerning.


You can read some of my responses to the HRTO here:


Below, I've provided some other cases in Ontario for which the HRTO application for reprisal was dismissed. In these cases, the applicant is the tenant and the respondent was their housing provider.


The applicant alleged that the Toronto Community Housing Corporation was evicting him because he filed an application with the HRTO. It sounds like he had been evicted for being in arrears of his rent, and his application alleging reprisal was dismissed.





This one is really sad. The applicant alleged he heard nasty words coming from the refrigerator, the fans, and other appliances in his apartment because his building’s supervisor “hacked the system”. So he filed an application with the HRTO. It was dismissed. His paranoia increased, and the respondent filed to evict him through the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) because he had substantially interfered with other tenants’ reasonable enjoyment of the residential complex by making repeated racist, sexist and abusive statements or gestures towards staff and residents, among other things. The applicant filed a second HRTO application, alleging that he was being evicted because of his first HRTO application. His second application alleged reprisal. It was dismissed and he was evicted.


3. Benstead v. Niagara Regional Housing, 2012 HRTO 1557 (CanLII)

The applicant originally filed with the LTB because another tenant was harassing her, including threats of harm. The respondent told the applicant that there was nothing it could do, and to work-it-out themselves or they’d both be evicted. The LTB found that the respondent “reacted in a prompt and professional manner” to the applicant’s complaints which “were unfounded and therefore no follow-up was necessary from the respondent”.


The applicant filed a second application with the LTB alleging that the other tenant continued harassing her, and the applicant demanded the other tenant be moved, or that the applicant be given a “health and safety” transfer. The applicant didn’t appear at the LTB hearing and it was dismissed as abandoned.


The applicant filed a third application with the LTB, alleging she had received death threats from the other tenant, and as well as a description of police involvement. The LTB determined that the applicant’s evidence was not convincing, and lacked specific details, as well as independent corroboration.


Ms. Benstead then filed an HRTO application, where she alleged reprisal because Niagara Regional Housing threatened to evict her if she didn’t agree to move out. Her HRTO application was dismissed because she didn’t allege the eviction threat was made as a reprisal for the applicant attempting to claim and enforce her rights under the Code.


What I Think

What is clear to me is that all of these applicants had mental health issues and all of their housing services providers did not know how to appropriately manage these varying complaints. If you were to read these cases in-depth, you’ll see that every single one of these applicants had tensions with their landlord or superintendent or building supervisor. To me, it sounds like each applicant felt like their housing services provider didn't deal with their complaints sufficiently, or at all. I was shocked to read that in the Benstead case, the LTB found that the housing provider “reacted in a prompt and professional manner” to the applicant’s complaint. Perhaps the housing provider’s way of reacting is professional in an employer-employee relationship, but it's certainly not in a landlord-and-tenant with a mental health condition relationship. Does no one realize that housing services providers owe a fiduciary duty to its tenants?


And look at the Kostanenk case. Mr. Kostanenk is clearly schizophrenic. Who knows what happened to him after he was evicted. But when you look outside and see homeless people, and think about how they got there, you realize they could have serious mental health conditions like schizophrenia. I know that schizophrenia symptoms improve with a good diet. People like Mr. Kostanenk don’t need to suffer if their suffering is due to a lack of housing and food. Yet Ontario couldn’t seem to help this man.


I think 99 percent of HRTO and LTB applications submitted by public housing tenants could be avoided altogether if housing services providers understood how to manage people with mental health conditions. And for a country that's experiencing an economic crisis, I think all Canadians need to start paying attention to whats going on.


When I was running my food security program, I arranged for the delivery of fresh food on a bi-weekly basis to hundreds of people just like these applicants. You think I didn’t run into problems with a lot of them? Of course I did. But I understood they had diagnosed or undiagnosed mental and/or developmental conditions. Some of them knew they had these conditions and some of them didn’t. But they were all starving. I knew they needed food and if they were acting in a way that could be perceived as unreasonable, I made a conscious decision to work-out their problem(s) and not judge them for being unreasonable or “ridiculous”.


Making a conscious decision to work-out problems makes all the difference. That’s when they know you’re on their side. That’s when they know you care about the fact that they’re starving. When people who’ve been treated like an animal for years start being treated like a human being, it changes the way they respond to you.


Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some people who abuse the system. But from my experience, there’s a lot less people trying to abuse—or take advantage of— social services, then you think. From my experience, the vast majority of “problematic tenants” are misunderstood. The severe lack of awareness that housing services providers have about their “problematic tenants” is the reason why there’s so many evictions.



It doesn’t have to be this way.


Ontario Ombudsman Calls for Update

Yesterday afternoon, I received a call from the Ontario Ombudsman. On February 7, 2025, I submitted another complaint to them, which included my Statement of Claim against the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH). The Ombudsman was calling to find out how that was going. I explained how I had to discontinue it because I was supposed to have sent them a Notice of Intent first. I also let her know that I intend to re-serve and re-file it on April 21, 2025.

The Ombudsman I spoke with reiterated how they’re more of a last-option type of organization, and to basically let them know if my court proceedings don’t pan out the way I want them to.


Even though they’re still not able to help, I really like the gals at the Ontario Ombusdman. Every time I’ve spoken to them, they’ve always made me feel good afterwards.


If housing services providers were operated by people who’ve been trained like the Ombudsmans, the amount of LTB and HRTO applications would drastically decline. Even though the Ontario Ombudsman isn’t helping, the way they've handled me makes all the difference in the way I perceive them.

 
 
 

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