Low-income tenants being denied access to justice says tenants advocacy centre

The Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario are calling on the provincial Landlord and Tenant Board to stop what they are calling a "blitz" of eviction hearings and to provide more support to low-income tenants struggling to access their hearings.

Lawyers from across the province affiliated with the advocacy centre held a virtual press conference on Wednesday, sharing stories they've heard or problems they've helped their clients with as the Landlord and Tenant Board works through the backlog of disputes created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of those problems is that the Landlord and Tenant Board isn't offering support or options to low-income tenants who don't have the devices, cellphone minutes, or internet connection to attend the exclusively virtual hearings, according to Kinna-aweya Legal Clinic staff lawyer Caycie Soke.

"It does feel like the tribunals have made a conscientious decision to protect their adjudicators and their staff without making any provisions or any plans to accommodate the low-income individuals who may be putting themselves at risk simply to access their basic rights to appear at their own hearing," said Soke.

Soke added she's had several clients travel in to Thunder Bay from outlying communities to get the resources they need at Kinna-aweya to attend their hearings, because they don't have any other options.

"These are not practices that should be encouraged during a pandemic, by downloading these responsibilities onto the tenants to bridge the gap between receiving the notice [about the hearing] and accessing the technology to attend the hearing."

Sally Colquhoun, the coordinator of legal services for Kinna-aweya, added that "the tribunal has done nothing to ensure that parties have the technology and other resources necessary to take part in an electronic hearing."

Colquhoun said prior to the pandemic, the tribunal scheduled the hearings, booked the venue, and even rented spaces with the necessary technology for video hearings. All the tenant had to do was show up.

"Now, the expectation is that the parties have the ability to just show up, and that's often not the case and [the tribunal] just doesn't seem to care."

Colquhoun added an example, where one of her staff lawyers called in to a hearing to provide counsel for a low-income tenant. That tenant hadn't called in for the hearing.

"The landlord confirmed that the tenant didn't have a phone. And the adjudicator said, 'well, the tenant should have borrowed a phone from somebody,'" explained Colquhoun. "That's kind of astounding to suggest that somebody should have to borrow a phone from somebody to take part in an administrative tribunal hearing in Ontario."

Kinna-aweya has limited resources to provide counsel for all low-income tenants

Another issue is that there are too many hearings for Thunder Bay district residents scattered throughout the week, and Kinna-aweya just doesn't have enough resources to provide counsel to all the tenants that need it.

"There was a day last week where there were nine different hearing blocks at the same time that had Thunder Bay addresses. We don't have enough staff to to respond to that, even if all we did was board hearings... so that's really problematic that that tenant duty counsel service isn't available," said Colquhoun.

The legal services coordinator for Kinna-aweya added that the tribunal needs to rethink the way it is proceeding with hearings, especially as the province works its way through a second wave of COVID-19.

"Stable housing is the number one defence against the spread of COVID-19. And to be ramping up the process to evict people into the midst of a pandemic when there's such a lack of affordable housing... one of the the landlord groups is suggesting that there might be 100,000 households who are in arrears of rent currently, primarily because of COVID. And just, you know, ramping up the system to evict them is so short-sighted. Where are all these people going to go? What's going to happen?"