New Brunswick ACORN is organizing pickets outside four MLA offices in Moncton, Riverview, Fredericton and Saint John this Friday, calling for an end to the housing crisis in the province.
Protesters will gather at the office of Moncton South MLA Greg Turner at 11:30am Friday, and at the office of Riverview MLA Bruce Fitch at 2:30pm. Fitch is also Minister of Social Development.
ACORN NB and the New Brunswick Coalition for Tenants Rights have long been calling for limits on the amount that a landlord can increase rent, and with this action continue to ask for a cap on rent increases, and also protections for tenants against evictions.
Sarah Lunney is a member of ACORN NB, and represents the group with the NB Coalition for Tenants Rights. She says a rent cap on vacant and non-vacant units will protect tenants, by letting them prepare in advance for rent increases.
Hear an interview with Sarah Lunney on CHMA Talks on May 20:
“2% was what we were asking for, because we thought that would be a compromise for tenants and landlords in the province,” says Lunney. “Essentially, it just protects you from having a 10% rent increase, or 40%, or what we saw in Moncton recently, the 200% rent increase.”
That case involved a family receiving notice from their landlord that rent on their two bedroom apartment would triple in September. The landlord planned to increase the rent on the apartment from $975, which the family currently pays, to $2975.
After the tenant posted the rent hike notice on social media, and calls from reporters started coming in, the landlord withdrew the notice of increase, while at the same time offering his tenants the ability to leave their year-to-year lease early, without penalty. The outcome was somewhat positive in the short term, but as the tenant told Times and Transcript reporter David Gordon Koch, his landlord can change his mind again any time, and send him another 200% rent hike notice.
“That’s why we’re asking for these rent caps,” says Lunney. “So that predatory landlord situations like this are managed and dealt with, and don’t arise so frequently.”
The province recently released a report on its rental review, which Premier Blaine Higgs called for in response to outcry from tenants groups. The report confirms many of the concerns cited by housing rights advocates, but stops short of calling rental and housing issues a crisis in New Brunswick. It recommends against a cap on rental increases, based on classical economic analysis that favours non-interference in markets.
The government’s rental review does call for reform of the Residential Tenancies act, something ACORN NB supports, but Lunney says it needs to happen sooner rather than later. The current act privileges tenants and offers little protection for tenants, she says. The act makes it easy to raise rents dramatically, or otherwise move to evict tenants, and that means people asking for basic repairs could risking their housing security by doing so.
“It’s a very precarious situation for low to moderate income people right now,” says Lunney. “And, you know, our wages are not keeping up with how much our rents are increasing, and it’s really concerning.”
Lunney agrees the housing system is complex, with market rental housing and subsidized housing playing in the mix. “There are different groups of issues,” says Lunney. “However, we want to see everyone be supported.”
For starters, people living in subsidized housing should be protected under the Residential Tenancies Act, says Lunney. “At the end of the day, housing is a human right, and we need to ensure that everyone has rights under this housing regime and are protected from rent increases,” says Lunney.
The pickets happening Friday are another in a long list of actions in ACORN NB’s campaign for housing justice.
“If there’s any tenants in Sackville, or across the province who want to get involved with ACORN, they can reach out to us on our Facebook page, and we will be happy to help them and help them organize,” says Lunney. “That’s what ACORN is about, is collective action. And speaking truth to power.”
