By Jennifer Higgs
Water leaks, mice, lack of fire safety standards and no heat – these are all complaints heard about unlicensed rooming houses.
City of Ottawa bylaw services co-ordinator Paul Hutt says they estimate 200 rooming houses are in Ottawa, but only 45 are licensed and 42 are pending approval.
In a response to complaints, the city has recently notified 100 unlicensed rooming house landlords to apply for a license. The notices were sent out three months ago, says Hutt.
Susan Jones, the city’s director of bylaw services, says it is an attempt to resolve ongoing problems and aims to ensure regular enforcement.
Rooming houses are buildings with four or more rooms in which people live.
They are associated with low-income housing and often used by people ready to leave shelters.
Licensing requires the location be inspected on a regular basis for electrical, property, building, zoning, health and fire standards. The cost of a license and annual renewal is $200, says Hutt.
Within the last year there has been more rooming house enforcement, Hutt says.
“A lot of the time each case has to be reviewed individually by the officer and assessed appropriately and dealt with appropriately,” he adds.
An unlicensed rooming house owner can face a maximum fine of $5,000 if in violation of regulations and a repeat offender, says Hutt.
A new rooming house bylaw is expected in 2006, says Jones. “I envision a team that is totally focused on rooming house licensing for the next few years.”
Maureen, who asked not to be identified with her last name, recently spent time in a rooming house in Centretown.
She says the rooming house was not licensed, none of the rooms had fire extinguishers and the refrigerator did not work properly.
“You put up with a lot of stuff if you wanted to stay in housing,” says Maureen.
She adds homeless people slept in the hallway and locks were not changed.
Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes says of the 67 rooming houses in her ward, 11 are licensed and 26 are awaiting approval.
She says it is important to be careful when asking rooming houses to get a license.
“There are certainly some rooming house owners who are telling us that if it’s too much hassle they will go back to being bachelor units and we would lose quite a few rooms that way,” says Holmes.
Maureen says the city would have more homeless people if landlords have to be licensed.
“Fees for tenants will go up . . . what happens to these tenants? That’s the big question,” she says.
Holmes says most rooming houses are well managed in her ward.
But some tenants are hesitant to report complaints because they fear the landlords will retaliate, she says, adding the city cannot enter a rooming house unless invited by a tenant.
“We would be trying to support the tenant,” she says.
She adds it is more costly to the city if tenants leave a rooming house and go to a shelter.
Rooming houses in the boundary of Old Ottawa have been required to obtain licenses since 2000, when a bylaw was passed. Jones says the problem is a lack of resources.
“They essentially enacted that bylaw without resources in place to adequately deal with this,” she says.
Catherine Boucher is the executive co-ordinator at Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, which runs a licensed rooming house in Centretown.
“My suspicion is the rooming houses that were first licensed were the ones that didn’t need to be licensed,” Boucher says.
“We know there are some rooming house operators who are working on the margins and there are some better ones,”
Raphael Weber is a rooming house tenant support worker with Housing Help, a non-profit organization funded by the city to assist people with housing problems.
He says when the city starts a new process for licensing it will be a great improvement.
“Many times some tenants will prefer to move out instead of trying to fight with their landlord, or they will just let it be,” says Weber.
With files from Jennifer Copestake