#housing rights

[lastcatghost]

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Hamilton, Ont., is close to introducing a first-of-its-kind renoviction bylaw in the province that will force landlords to obtain licences to legitimize repairs they make to their properties. The new legislation, carried 13-0-2 in a committee vote Wednesday, forces property owners to apply for a special permit for their rental addresses at a cost of around $700 when seeking a provincial N-13 notice — ending a tenancy due to a desire to demolish, repair or convert a rental unit. University of Waterloo professor Brian Doucet, who studied housing insecurity and recorded findings in the Hamilton Neighbourhood Change Research Project, characterizes the bylaw as a movement that will be “blazing a trail that others in Ontario will soon follow.”

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Tagging @politicsofcanada

[sephirajo]

REMINDER: Disabled people exist. Please stop leaving us out of conversations about housing and food.

Do you know how fucking hard it is to live on 600-1300 a month?  Do you?  Why are we left out of all of these conversations. We need homes too. We need food. Medicine. And so many leftists talk over us like we’re not fucking here.

[politijohn]

Some good news

[newsfromstolenland]

Earlier this month, Toronto and East York Community Council unanimously approved a rental housing demolition application for 25 St. Mary St., which is just south of Bloor Street East between Bay and Yonge streets. The property’s owner, Tenblock, wants to construct two new towers that are 54 and 59 storeys in place of the current v-shaped structure on that site. City council is set to consider the matter at its May 10 meeting.

[...]

Under City of Toronto Act, renters who are displaced by a building’s demolition are entitled to return to their unit and pay similar rent once the building is redeveloped. They’re also entitled to be compensated for their moving expenses as well as the gap in rent for a comparable temporary unit, and notice before vacating.

Those rights could, however, be compromised by newly introduced provincial legislation, which if passed, would weaken municipal rental replacement bylaws and give the province greater authority.

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Tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics

[radicalrascal]

Housing is a Right 🐌

Sticker now available in shop ❤️

[chronicallycouchbound]

ID: glowing blue and green text on a black background reads: “our city glows when all our neighbors have homes”

[regan1003]

Can you imagine living in the horror of the LA housing market and your landlord isn't even around all the time bc he's getting paid to portray Jesus Christ, the Messiah, in a widely popular tv show depicting Jesus and his apostles as revolutionaries? I would become feral.

[terraoliveira]

do these houses hold the foundation for setting us free  or will they kill us  we do have a right  i’ve been coughing for years  the mold in the walls  the rust in the water  all the leaking ceilings  collapsing in the kitchens  the housing code  demands 24-72 hours  for landlords to fix almost everything  so while the rent is in escrow & the landlords appeal us in court  i go back to the fresh air  i falsely remember  of my childhood homes  now foreclosed & sold

— Tenant, Terra Oliveira (Published in Issue 12 of The Tiny Mag)

[lastcatghost]

All landlords, cops and billionaires must perpetuate evil in order to maintain their status as such in society, if they didn't help uphold the evils of this system, they won't remain any of these 3 for long

[useless-catalanfacts]

Since recently we posted some things about tourism, I think this will be interesting to share too. I’ve translated to English a news video and an article about one of the main problems that come with the massification of tourism: gentrification and the expulsion of local people.

As a reference, when in Catalan we talk about “the islands” it means the Balearic (Mallorca and Menorca) including the Pityusic (Eivissa and Formentera) islands.

English speakers are more familiar with the translated name “Ibiza”, but in this post I’ll be using the island’s native name “Eivissa”.

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4th June 2022. Source: TV3.

Doctors, teachers or waiters, without an affordable place to live in the Islands

The price of apartments is focused towards tourism and makes it impossible for people who want to live in it to pay it, so they have to resign from their jobs because they can’t make it [they have to pay too much compared to the money they get paid]

The prices set for tourism in the Islands makes it practically impossible for people who work there to find a place to live that they can pay.

It’s not a new situation, but it has spread and is becoming worse. And this has the consequence that jobs are left vacant, from healthcare to teaching, waiters or electricians.

Video:

Journalist: Maria Margalida Perelló has been living in a hotel. She was supposed to start working as a substitute teacher in a high school in Eivissa and she didn’t find any place.

Maria Margalida Perelló: I can’t do it economically, to live in a hotel, where you don’t have a kitchen, you have to go eat out or try to manage. Every weekend I wasn’t living here, I go back to Mallorca because it’s much more affordable to do that.

J: There are more teachers in the same hotel. If you don’t join the job offer, you’re penalized [in the system that assigns teaching places]. On the internet, an active Telegram group helps substitute teachers find a flat, but now towards the end of the school year it’s impossible.

The islands are full of examples of the lack of affordable renting apartments. In general in all the islands, and in the Pityusic islands, for years it has been even more worrying.

Pep Martí, works at a shop: There has been weeks where we have gotten 10 or 12 people coming here only to look for a house, a living place, one room, whatever we can offer them.

J: It’s not possible to find waiters nor cooks. The waiting list for stonecutters, plumbers or electricians is long. Nurses and medical professionals don’t want to come. In Formentera’s hospital they have been left for weeks without any oncologist. To the problems of work stability, they must add the problem of  a place to live in.

Pepo Rubio, from Ràdio Illa Formentera: Not only is it expensive on an economic level, it’s also expensive for its conditions. They should have to accept the renters who want to live here all year. For example, [renters] have to abandon their usual place of residence in summer [because landlords prefer to rent it to tourists].

J: That’s why everything is for rent. Shared rooms, garages that become living spaces. These are the 12 apartments that the police has gotten in one of the most troubled neighbourhoods of the island, Sa Penya.

About 40 families lived here in substandard housing that the City Hall of Eivissa has reformed and has now given to Policia Nacional [Spanish police] who are destined to the island. An experience of making two very different worlds live together.

Doctors and nurses are now also asking to be given a living space for free in summer to be able to come and cover the needs of the island’s hospitals.

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10th April 2018. Source: LaSexta.

A balcony for 500€, a room for 1,000€, a mattress for 500€... the other face of Eivissa, where it’s almost impossible to live

Flats shared with 12 people, rooms that reach 1,000€ of rent each month or only a mattress for 500€. Living in Eivissa is almost mission impossible and not only in summer. The platform Affected by Touristic Flats brings together 9,000 inhabitants of the island. Some families leave their city because the situation is unsustainable.

A room with only one bed and dampness for 500€, that’s where Alexandra sleeps with her 12-year-old son. With a job and a stable income, this is the best she has been able to find. “There are balconies for 500€, rooms with 3 beds for 600€ each bed, I have my job and even working I can’t pay for a home”, she says.

Another flat is inhabited by 13 people, until now they paid 250€ for a mattress and now their landlord want to fit two more people and raise their rent to 350€ each. Her name is Lourdes, she’s from Eivissa and she sleeps in a room with her mother and her two children. The daughter is already 3 years old but she has to keep sleeping in her cradle because there isn’t room for anything else.

Taking a look on the internet, we’ve found many adverts; we called one of them, showed ourselves interested in a room and this was the answer: “The flat is 3,000€, it has three rooms and I have to divide the expenses, it’s 1,000€ per room.”

(...)

All of this is deriving in an increase of shanty towns, where employed workers live. They can’t find homes anywhere and with their salary they can’t pay for any room. This is the other face of Eivissa.

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I think these two give the idea. But there are many more examples of this situation in the islands, even more so in Eivissa, which is a hotspot for international nightlife tourism (for example, this one about paying 800€ each month to live in a flat infested with rats).

And yes, when they say “balcony” they don’t mean a flat with a balcony, they mean that the person lives completely only in the balcony, outdoors. The ones marked in red in the next photo are examples of rented balconies in Eivissa:

(Photo source: Última Hora)

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Quebec's new housing bill is a step closer to becoming law, promising to protect tenants -- but housing advocates are uneasy.  Bill 31 was introduced as a way to improve tenant rights amid the current housing crisis, but critics say some aspects of the proposed law are working against renters. For example, Bill 31 would bring the end of lease transfers. The practice involves a tenant transferring their lease to someone else, undercutting any attempt by the landlord to choose who they want and raise the rent.

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Tagging @politicsofcanada

[australianwomensnews]

A Sydney woman who escaped brutal domestic violence is facing homelessness with her six-week-old baby after spending more than two years in a temporary private rental while on the priority list for social housing.

Sarah, who is using a pseudonym for safety reasons, is living in a two-bedroom flat in unsanitary and unsafe conditions but was recently asked to leave after she fought a 60 per cent rent increase and asked for repairs.

Sarah, who is in her 30s, has been on the social housing list since August 2021 and on the priority list since December that year, needing a home suitable for herself, two dogs, and now a baby. The pregnancy was a surprise and the baby’s father is not her perpetrator but is not involved much.

The most recent figures for NSW social housing had 51,013 people on the general waitlist and 6519 on the priority list.

Sarah received a one-off state government grant of $4350 for victims of family violence to help her with her bond and initial rent. She was paying $400 a fortnight, which was a reduced price based on putting up with some maintenance issues, such as boarded-up windows in the living room, thinking she would only need to stay for three to six months.

More recently, the ceiling in the kitchen collapsed, and broken plaster is directly overhanging the stove. The lack of proper windows also mean higher power bills now she needs to keep the flat warm enough for her baby.

Despite the problems, the landlord recently tried to increase the rent to $640 a fortnight, which would be 97 per cent of her income from Centrelink.

Rose Jackson, NSW Minister for Housing and Homelessness, said the government had “inherited a housing system that is broken after a decade of neglect”.

“This story is not only heartbreaking, but the harsh reality of our housing crisis in NSW,” Jackson said.

“We need to strengthen our housing system across the board to ensure people don’t fall through the cracks and find themselves unable to access shelter.”

The Greens have been lobbying to cap rent increases to be in line with inflation and end no-grounds eviction.

[cyberthot666]

on landlords

[humanrightsconnected]

Did you know that, according to the UN, more than 100 million people worldwide are homeless? Be sure to check out the following 4 nonprofits and discover from them the action steps you can take to prevent and end homelessness! 

👉 Covenant House 

👉 Eviction Defense Collaborative 

👉 National Homelessness Law Center 

👉 The Shift