Two Toronto tenants were almost evicted for being one cent short of rent
Now, they’re sharing their story as a warning to other renters in light of Bill 60
It’s been a particularly disheartening month or so for Toronto tenants, with several developments highlighting just how precarious it can feel to rent an apartment in this city.
In October, the provincial government tabled Bill 60, which would effectively end rent control. (Toronto city council voted to oppose the bill last week.) Also last month, a report from the real estate company Zoocasa found that Torontonians need to earn $44 an hour to comfortably afford a one-bedroom. And in commercial landlord news, the owners of a beloved Little Italy bakery announced that they have to close because their lease wasn’t renewed, at the last minute, after they’d been led to believe their tenancy was secure.
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Another scary story to add to the ever-increasing pile: two brothers in the Weston area were issued an eviction notice after they paid $1,860 instead of $1860.01 late last year. The York South–Weston Tenant Union worked with them to resolve the notice, and they are now sharing their experience as a warning in light of the province’s Bill 60 announcement.
A copy of the eviction notice was published by BlogTO and shows that the tenants paid their rent six days late, with one cent missing from the total. Though the order appears to have followed other notices, as the document includes mention of a previous order, the tenants said the one-cent discrepancy was a misunderstanding.
“Bill 60 would have put me and my brother on the streets over one penny we didn’t even know that we owed. We can’t let this bill pass,” said Olliver, one of the tenants.
At last week’s city council meeting, Councillor Josh Matlow urged the province to consider the affordability needs of the average renter. “By removing those protections, it would leave tenants across Ontario in a situation where they would be even more vulnerable,” he said.
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
