landlords – The Concordian

Landlords sound the alarm while other advocates say more can be done

Advocacy groups for social housing in Montreal have praised Mayor Valérie Plante’s use of the right of first refusal law, which gives the city priority in purchasing properties over private buyers for the benefit of the community.

The law, granted by the Charter of Ville de Montréal, was created in 2016 to afford the city greater powers in developing urban planning projects. Since then, the Plante administration has said it would use the law to help tackle the city’s affordable housing problem.

However, some groups representing landlords insist the city’s decision to purchase buildings for the purpose of social housing is a costly mistake.

Matthew Pearce, former CEO and President of the Old Brewery Mission, told The Concordian that the acquisition of Parc-

A mock advising session was at Project Genesis, a grassroots organization that helps the community resolve social issues, such as housing problems and basic income insecurity.

Extension’s Hutchison Plaza in September was a good start.

“[The mayor] should see the acquisition of the Hutchison building as the first in an ongoing process of purchasing of buildings that become available.” The creation of the law allows the city to compete with the deep pockets of private developers, he said.

About 20,000 families are currently on the waiting list, he explained.

“There are many people who aren’t homeless but are very precariously housed. Anybody who is without housing should have access to affordable housing.”

However, not everyone agrees with the mayor’s decision.

Martin Messier, President of the Association des Propriétaires du Québec told The Concordian that the right of first refusal should only be used in exceptional cases.

“We think the best way to help the tenant is to provide financial help so that they are able to really choose the location and make sure that we have diversity in a building, so not only tenants with the same profile. I think it’s a win-win for the tenant and the landlord.”

Hans Brouillette, Director of Public Affairs at Corporation des Propriétaires Immobiliers du Québec, said he recognized that the private market is incapable of fulfilling the needs of all tenants. However, he stated that the city’s move was unnecessarily expensive and inefficient.

Aside from buying the property, the city will have to renovate and manage it, he said.

“The same amount of money would have helped many more households if it could have been used to keep tenants in their current apartment in the private market, or even to help them to move to a better apartment.”

Community organizer at Project Genesis, Darby MacDonald

“If some types of apartments are not available then the city should support promoters with subsidies to build those apartments,” he said. “It’s all politics. It’s an administration against landlords.”

In response to assertions about the private market’s effectiveness, Darby MacDonald, a community organizer at Project Genesis, told The Concordian that social housing “exists and is successful because it exists outside of the private market that isn’t serving the needs of its people.”

“Subsidies alone won’t resolve issues of people who require housing, and many of those who accept subsidies find themselves in difficult situations,” MacDonald said. One woman, she explained, accepted an apartment subsidy for five years but the landlord renovicted the building’s other inhabitants. “She’s the only person remaining and doesn’t have electricity.”

“The solution is for the government to step in and take care of the community the way that it can.”

Photographs by Christine Beaudoin

Useful tips to maintain a desirable relationship with your landlord

So you’ve moved into your first apartment. Congratulations! The problem is you don’t know the first thing about training your new landlord. A current trend in raising landlords is to let them grow up and discover the world on their own, but the truth is landlords require good old-fashioned discipline.

If you don’t properly discipline your landlord, you are not only raising one who will be troublesome for you to deal with, but one who will go out and burden other people after you leave the nest. Landlord training is a large project—one that never really ends—but this article will cover the basics and help you lay the foundation that you can use to later teach them more complex tricks and better behaviour.

The first step in training your landlord is establishing dominance. This step is fundamental because it will shape all of your future interactions with your landlord. In order to learn obedience, your landlord must first understand that you hold the power in the relationship. This can be achieved by raising your voice when necessary, learning your rights and asserting them, or even consulting—or threatening to consult—legal representatives. Ideally, you want your landlord to both love and fear you—but if you cannot have both, always choose fear.

Another important technique to remember is to reward positive behaviour and punish negative behaviour. At this stage in your relationship, it is essential to instill in them the concepts of right and wrong. You may be afraid to discipline your landlord, either out of fear of hurting their feelings or a desire to avoid conflict. But what are you really teaching them by not enforcing the things they are required to do by law? Sure, you can play the ‘good tenant’ so your landlord will like you more, but it’s more important that they learn that their actions have consequences.

Say “good job” or “nice one” when your landlord does something like take their shoes off when they enter your home, or fixes/replaces a broken appliance. Do your best to convey your disappointment in them when they try to enter your apartment without giving 24-hours notice, or if they request illegal payments like damage deposits. They might try to test your willingness to stand up for yourself, but you need to be firm and remember it is for their own benefit.

If you have an especially stubborn landlord, you may want to bring in a specialized expert such as a landlord-whisperer or the Off-Campus Housing and Job Bank (HOJO) at Concordia.

Using this framework in your landlord training will make it possible for you to teach your landlord all kinds of tricks. You may even develop a positive relationship with them. The most crucial thing to remember is that you are paying a lot of money for your apartment, and it is yours. This means you hold the power in the relationship, so don’t be afraid to use it.

Take the process one step at a time, and don’t be too concerned about overall progress—focus on small goals each day, and you will have an obedient and well-behaved landlord in no time. If all else fails, you can always find a new one next year. Good luck!

Graphic by Wednesday Laplante