Single dad’s fight against rent hike shines light on need for tenant associations

It’s a problem we see or hear about every day. Tents in the park, people living in cars, being evicted or worried they won’t make rent. This week we’re looking at the scope of the problem, how we got here, who can fix it and how. 

The ultimatum came out of nowhere.

John Sperry’s landlords let him know that his rent was going up by almost $200 a month. If he didn’t like it, he’d have to live somewhere else.

Sperry was caught off-guard. For the past six years, he and his family had been living in the Truro apartment with no complaints from the landlord.  

Then this past summer, Sperry and his partner split up. They’d arranged that she’d move out and Sperry and their son would stay.

That presented a serious problem for Sperry’s landlords, Doug and Jane Landsberg. In their view, both Sperry and his ex had signed for the apartment and Sperry’s ex leaving broke the lease. Now they wanted more money.  

“The Landsbergs told me three times they were going to raise my rent 15 per cent and … have me pay my own power,” said Sperry.

 “They threatened me twice that I would be served legal papers if I didn’t pay.”

Except the law isn’t on the Landsbergs’ side. There’s nothing in his lease stating that it could be terminated if either Sperry or his ex moved out.  

More from our weeklong series on the housing crisis: Fixed-term leases: N.S. Tories won’t fix loophole landlords use to evict at will

He thinks his landlords were trying to get around the rent cap. Residential landlords are only allowed to raise rent by two per cent a year. Sperry’s landlord wanted seven or eight times that.

Sperry is challenging the rent hike with the province’s tenancies board. His hearing was held last month in Truro. The Landsbergs didn’t show up. Just a few months earlier, the couple raised another tenant’s rent by more than $200.

We’ll get to that later.

No landlord charged

Landlords face few hurdles in this province when it comes to what they can charge. Residential tenancy laws are not actively enforced, and the rent cap is often ignored.

Sperry figures he and his son will sit tight and hope to avoid a big rent increase. The Residential Tenancies Act does allow for prosecution of landlords who violate the act, but no landlord has ever been charged.

Regardless, Sperry said the average tenant is not even aware of the rules.

Nova Scotia Legal Aid, Dalhousie Legal Aid and other tenant advocates have been lobbying the province for years to add teeth to tenancies legislation. They say that starts with increasing the maximum fine for landlords. But it also means giving the Director of Residential Tenancies the authority to issue fines and award damages.  

Mark Culligan is a community legal worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid Service. He says that tenants need to mobilize and that the Nova Scotia government should help by funding tenant associations.

Ontario and British Columbia have growing numbers of groups that organize for tenant rights and advocate for peoples’ right to housing.

Back in 2018, Vancouver Tenants Union pressured the province into lowering the rent cap. British Columbia had planned to increase the maximum annual allowable rent increase to 4.5 per cent. The city was already in the grips of a housing crisis. The union organized provincewide rallies and stopped the increase.

In Toronto, the York South-Weston Tenant Union is behind the largest rent strike in the city’s history. Hundreds of people from four buildings are refusing to pay their rent. The union is fighting against continual rent increases and demanding that substantial repairs be done in the buildings. 

 “We really need a vibrant movement where tenants can kind of step forward together (and) define collective solutions,” says Culligan.

There is a tenant association at Ocean Breeze, about 400 former military row houses converted to low-income housing in Dartmouth. The entire neighborhood was bought by developers, who plan to tear down the old houses and build apartment buildings.

The tenant group is now fighting a mass eviction.

Culligan compares tenancy associations to labour unions and believes they could help offset the power of landlords.

“The market remains so tight that there’s going to be a fundamental imbalance in the tenant landlord relationship,” he said.

“If you’re speaking on behalf of a tenants association, there is a little bit more of a protection than if you’re just a vulnerable individual.”  

A funded tenant advocate can deal with the landlord and go to court, if needed.

Culligan says the province could help with the cost of setting up these organizations and pay for legal training for members.

Sperry’s case isn’t a one-off. He lives in one of three apartment buildings that sit side-by-side on the same street. They’re owned by the Landsbergs. Last spring, Jane Landsberg emailed another tenant telling her that her rent would be going up by more than $200. The tenant asked that we not use her name. We obtained emails between the two.

Landsberg said in the emails that costs had gone up and the woman would have to start paying the power bill. The rent would be cut by $100, but in the end, the tenant would be paying $225 a month more.

We spoke this week with Doug Landsberg about this and Sperry’s claims. 

“I didn’t touch his rent..don’t bother me on it,” said Landsberg. When asked whether he or his wife accused Sperry of breaking the lease, Landsberg said he didn’t know. “That’s behind me. John can stay away all together. Nothing happened there. I don’t know what he’s complaining about.”

SaltWire also asked Landsberg about the other tenant, who claimed she’d been forced into paying an additional $200 a month in rent.  He said he didn’t know about that, either. “I’d have to go look at the office and see what’s going on. I’ll comment on it later on.”

 Nova Scotia’s Conservative government, which announced the rent cap will be raised to five per cent on Jan. 1, hasn’t been kind to tenants.

More from our weeklong series on the housing crisis: Perfect storm of factors contributed to Nova Scotia’s current housing woes

Colton Leblanc, minister responsible for the Residential Tenancies Act, wouldn’t say whether he’d fund tenancy associations. He said the rules are simple and tenants should be able to represent themselves.

“What we’re doing as a government and as a department is continuing our efforts to work with our partners to ensure that both tenants and landlords are aware of their rights and responsibilities.”

Other jurisdictions have been proactive. 

The City of San Francisco passed a right-to-organize bylaw earlier this year that forces landlords to accept tenant associations and bargain with them.