In the dead of winter, it’s an icy walk up the steps that lead to 85 Range Rd.
The 10-storey building towers above most others in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill. It’s here where 34-year-old Shivangi Misra, a human rights lawyer and tenant organizer, lives with her boyfriend Ethan and her dog Fergus.
The couple are members of the Neighbourhood Organizing Centre, which helps tenants form renters’ unions. Rising rents and market pressure drove them to join.
“A tenant union is a group of people who come together to take action collectively,” Misra says. “It looks a lot like your typical labour union. A lot of us have contracts and lease agreements with our landlords individually, but your interests and my interests as tenants are quite similar.”
A December 2025 report from Rentals.ca showed that average rent for a one bedroom apartment in Ottawa was down 3.2 per cent compared to the previous year at $1,951.
But the price of a one-bedroom is still about 22 per cent higher than five years ago.
I think that people think of tenant unions as troublemakers, paid lobbyists, or crazy Marxists. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Generally, it’s people who … just want to retain their homes and retain their homes affordably.
Prof. Carolyn Whitzman, University of Toronto’s School of Cities
Prolonged increases in rent have disproportionately affected low-income individuals, says Steve Pomeroy, executive advisor and industry professor at the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC), based out of McMaster University.
“If we take a quick look at the income spectrum, people with less resources tend to rent, people with more resources tend to own,” Pomeroy said. “The issue of affordability is not a housing problem as much as it’s an income problem. When you have high demand, you have upward pressure on rents.”
Pomeroy says market conditions also make it more difficult for tenants to negotiate with landlords.
“When you get very low vacancy rates and high demand, it is a landlord market––a seller’s market––as opposed to an economy that favours active tenancies,” he said.
Misra says market pressures and a lack of support from the province is pushing more renters to explore the idea of tenant unions, in response to rising rents.
“The politicians are not interested in serving the interest of the tenants,” Misra said. “They keep blaming it as a supply issue, even though there is a lack of rent control and other protections. You can take a case to the Landlord and Tenant Board or try to negotiate the rent price with your landlord, but they’re extremely well-funded and well-resourced.”
Data from Tribunals Ontario’s 2024-25 Annual Report shows the active caseload of the Landlord and Tenant Board sits at more than 41,000 with 88 per cent of cases last year originating with landlords.
Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, a senior housing researcher and adjunct professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, says the province has received a “hall pass” when it comes to affordability.
Whitzman cited the provincial government’s elimination of rent control for new buildings constructed after 2018, signed into the 2017 Rent Fairness Act.
“People tend to ignore the biggest policy failure, which is the provincial government,” Whitzman said. “The Ontario government is in charge of social assistance and landlord-tenant relations. A lack of rent control in Ontario has encouraged landlords to evict tenants for various legitimate or non-legitimate reasons.”
Misra said a lot of her work with tenant unions is exposing cases of malpractice among some landlords.
“We look at the ways a landlord neglects our properties, disrespects us or tries to evict us so he or she can increase the rent and so on,” she said. “These are shared common experiences. When you act collectively, you have the power to expose the landlord, discover trends and patterns of his or her harassment, and be stronger as a collective.”
Misra says her building at 85 Range Rd. is trying to organize, citing heating issues as one point of contention.
Whitzman said tenant organizing tends to be misrepresented.
“I think that people think of tenant unions as troublemakers, paid lobbyists, or crazy Marxists,” said Whitzman. “That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Generally, it’s people who haven’t necessarily been involved in politics before and just want to retain their homes and retain their homes affordably.”
Misra said the work of the Neighbourhood Organizing Centre is grassroots, and tenant unions form organically from different structures.
“We try to establish tenant committees within buildings or on city blocks, and sometimes even entire streets,” Misra said. “What we have succeeded in doing is we have different tenant committees within the Tenants of Sandy Hill, as well as the Bank Block Tenants.”
Get organized, get involved, talk to your neighbours, and the outcome that you will get from being organized is almost always better than what you would get if you were fighting alone
Shivangi Misra, Tenant rights advocate
The Tenants of Sandy Hill, formed in March 2025, has been involved in pressuring landlords to fix long-ignored repairs, fight unfair rent increases and has blocked illegal evictions. Organizing allows tenants to present a united front to their landlord, engaging in rent strikes or negotiations collectively.
Whitzman says the growth of tenant unions reflects worsening housing conditions.
“We’re seeing more of them because it’s so much worse,” Whitzman said. “I mean, it’s as simple as that. It’s great that these organizations exist, but they’ve risen in reaction to a crisis, one where every level of government is to blame.”
Misra said the case for a tenant union is clear: better outcomes for renters.
“Get organized, get involved, talk to your neighbours, and the outcome that you will get from being organized is almost always better than what you would get if you were fighting alone,” she said.
