By Lattitia Taylor
Tenants of City of Ottawa’ subsidized housing whose residences are in need of repairs can now bypass their landlords and demand improvements directly from the city.
The change came after seniors living in an Ottawa Community Housing Corp. complained about filth that was not referred to the city’s property standards branch.
“No tenant should have to go through this, its ridiculous,” says Brenna Rivier, a community activist who took on their cause.
The seniors called 311, the city’scontact centre for municipal information and services, after theywere ignored by the Ottawa Community Housing Corp. But, Rivier said when the seniors called 311, city employees told them to call Ottawa Community Housing itself, not the property standards branch.
The city’s Craig Calder got in touch with the call centre as soon as he heard about the problem. Hey says he’s made changes and now tenants can reach the property standards branch directly.
“This change gives them another avenue,” he says.
No tenants were willing to speak to the media. Rivier said the tenants are terrified of losing their housing as a consequence of complaints.
Ron Larkin, the CEO of Ottawa Community Housing Corp, says residents should contact their landlord before going to the city. “The quickest way to get attention in dealing with a problem within a unit owned and operated by Ottawa Community Housing is to actually report it to our call centre,” he says.
Larkin says in some cases people are a bit frustrated by long delays for large scale, expenditure repairs. But, he says that with 15, 000 units in the city, this is a big undertaking.
He says finances have been tight since the provincial government downloaded affordable housing responsibilities to cities. “We deal with it to the extent we can, so if the tenants feel they have to go to the property standards people, that’s fine, we wouldn’t deny them of that right,” he says.
Larkin estimates it will cost in the vicinity of $600 million to bring current city housing up to present building standards and has initiated a study to assess this.
“The City of Ottawa does not have that money to fund that kind of expenditure and we don’t for sure, but once the study is completed we are going to have to be very creative in terms of addressing the problem,” he says.
Rivier says she knows there are limited funds for repairs, but stress that current conditions aren’t acceptable.
“The bottom line is, we as a community, we can help,” she says.
She says if landlords can’t make necessary repairs, they have to be honest with tenants.
“Tell your tenants you need more money. Just don’t ignore them, which is basically what they do.”