82 search results for
Tenants/renters
Recommendation 3:
Use City powers to impose non-profit management on hotels with outstanding Standards of Maintenance violations, and ensure that tenants have the protection of the Residential Tenancy Act.
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendation 35:
Update the Poverty Reduction Plan to prevent, not “reduce”, dislocation and homelessness
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendation 3:
These standards should be modified by municipal and provincial government actors to align with our modern-day standards, an understanding of cultural differences and the “economic realities”. For this, we can look beyond our borders to other nations who have implemented more flexible guidelines that cause fewer barriers for those seeking housing. Using these guidelines, flexible and localized occupancy standards should be developed that reflect the affordable housing crisis while recognizing current societal patterns and embodying a true right to housing.
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendation 103:
The provincial Residential Tenancy Act needs to be amended as follows:
- The Act must cover all housing, including residents of social housing, nonprofit SROs, supportive housing, and temporary modular housing. People living in supportive housing should not be subjected to restrictive rules that violate their basic tenancy rights.
- The Act must tie rent to the unit, not the tenant, so landlords cannot renovict tenants to increase rents. The Act must also tie landlord rights to increase rent with obligations to maintain property and to comply with orders made by the Residential Tenancy Branch.
- Extend the ‘right of first refusal’ to tenants to return at their renovated unit at the previously payable rent in order to prevent renovictions. Also extend right of first refusal to all tenants, not just those living in residential complexes of more than five units.
- When evicting a tenant on grounds that the landlord or a close family member intends to move in, require the landlord to file a statutory declaration indicating their relationship to the family member and that they intend to occupy the unit for at least six months.
- Extend the grace period for non-payment of rent to 20 days; eliminate the Direct Request Process for non-payment of rent; and allow arbitrators discretion to consider contextual factors and refuse an order of possession for failure to pay rent.
- Provide tenants the right to a warning before getting an eviction notice for cause and require automatic dispute resolution hearings for all evictions, where landlords initiate eviction proceedings by applying with the Residential Tenancy Branch in order to receive a registered eviction notice and schedule a mandatory hearing.
- Develop a property maintenance policy that outlines a breadth of health, safety, and security standards.
- Create more robust enforcement mechanisms at the Residential Tenancy Branch to stop fraudulent evictions and to ensure landlords are adhering to maintenance obligations; amend criteria and lower the threshold for accepting investigation requests; increase the deadlines and expand the grounds for Review Consideration; and introduce a wider breadth of penalties that are imposed more often.
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendation 71:
The Province should increase funding for People of African Descent organisations and tenant support agencies to provide free advice on housing investments, and rent support programs targeted at People of African Descent in economic precarity.
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendation 72:
The Province should commit to working with the Hogan’s Alley Working Group to deepen the long term involvement and investment of the Black Community in the future life of the historic 898 Main Street block in Vancouver through the exploration of land trusts, long term leases, or other arrangements as appropriate.
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendation 5:
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing should develop a neutral, easy-to-use process for tenants to identify and voice their tenancy and assistance needs, with a focus on clients that might experience disability-related barriers doing so on their own (for example, clients in supportive housing arrangements). The service should be contracted out to be delivered by a low-barrier community-based organization where people with disabilities already access services
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Recommendation 66:
The Ministry of Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing should explicitly regulate against gentrification and ban practices that pigeonhole People of African Descent and families into living in particular residential zones in BC cities. This should include funding and collaboration with People of African Descent organizations to deepen tenants and landlords’ awareness of their rights and responsibilities. This is particularly crucial for People of African Descent renters to more easily access information on their options in various scenarios and on how to protect their rights.
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendation 65:
The Ministry of Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing should ensure that the upcoming Anti-racism Legislation provides clear, reliable and empathetic options for reporting anti-Black racism and discrimination in housing. The legislation should also impose adequate punishments for racist and discriminatory landlords.
-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendation 67:
The Ministry of Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing should ensure that the race-based data legislation incorporate sufficient measures to allow BC Housing and other housing providers to collect, use, and publish data on People of African Descent housing situations in BC that would enable a holistic understanding of the prevailing trends and dynamics as they relate to ownership, accountability, access to credit, share of distributed affordable housing units, homelessness and the general place of anti-Black racism on access to housing.
-
Category and theme:
Groups affected: