By Jessica Crowe
Low-income residents in Centretown could soon be hit with higher rents driven up by the increased cost of natural gas.
Bob MacDonald of Housing Help, an organization that helps people find homes, says those who live in low-income homes and apartments will have to pay the increase, or spend the winter on the street.
“People aren’t going to have the option to move. There’s no place to move to,” says MacDonald. Most apartments in Ottawa are too expensive, he adds.
Because more people are now using natural gas as an energy source, the price of the fuel has nearly doubled over the last year.
The Tenant Protection Act stipulates rent cannot be raised higher than 2.6 per cent in the year 2000, but landlords can apply to the Rental Housing Tribunal for an increase if they can prove they have new expenses, like heating costs, that make it necessary.
This problem could be significant in Centretown, says MacDonald, as 85 per cent of people in central Ottawa are renters.
MacDonald says if low-income tenants pay their own utility bills, they will still feel the heat hike, despite the call by the federal government to introduce a $250 rebate on utility costs for low-income families. He says the province will deduct the amount from welfare cheques, considering it income.
“It’s clawed back before they even get it,” says MacDonald.
Glen Allen of the Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, which manages 42 low-income buildings in Centretown, says the hike in heat prices will only be noticed over a long period.
“Gas prices and heating may make up only two per cent of the total cost,” he says. “Mortgage and taxes are bigger pieces of the pie.”
Mike Campbell, manager of media relations for Enbridge Consumers Gas, says the average family of four would have spent $980 heating their homes last year. This year, they can expect to spend $1400 .
Enbridge, one heat supplier in Centretown, raised its price in June this year to $15.50 per cubic metre from $10.33. October saw the price raised again, to $20.75.
But Campbell says Enbridge makes no profit from the increase since the Ontario Energy Board must approve increases before companies implement them.
There are ways to keep heating costs down, says Campbell, such as lowering the hot water heater temperature, washing clothes with cold water, and applying weather stripping on doors.
Though the cost of gas heating has gone up, Enbridge says it is still the cheapest form of heat.
Oil is 21 per cent more expensive than natural gas, while electricity is 100 per cent more expensive.