Falling through the cracks: the renters excluded from Burnaby’s tenant assistance policy

In December 2019, the City of Burnaby launched its new tenant assistance policy (TAP), finalized in March 2020. In March 2020, the city released a video on YouTube and its website celebrating the policy, saying, “The policy is one of the most progressive in Canada.” 

Soon after the policy was launched, problems started to appear. The first was that the policy places the responsibility on the developer to compensate tenants facing eviction. Some developers and property owners began to neglect buildings and apartments, allowing mould, infestations, and other issues to go unchecked, making life unbearable for tenants. Tenants would then have no choice but to leave of their own accord, exempting the property owner from having to provide any form of assistance. 

In one incident, the ceiling of a building on Dow Avenue collapsed in February 2021 due to black mould. In other instances, widespread neglect became the norm. 

“Some of our neighbours in the building next door, their building maintenance and issues have been so badly neglected that the roof literally, like the ceiling, fell down because of black mould and water damage,” Metrotown resident Jess Li said. “They’d been reporting that for a while to try to get the building owner to do something about it.” 

Some tenants acknowledge that the city started paying attention after the collapse and overseeing developers to ensure they do not act in bad faith.  

“Our building wasn’t maintained either. It wasn’t as bad as the ceiling literally caving in, but things like the hallways weren’t vacuumed, and there was no maintenance. I know some of my neighbours had things that needed to be fixed in their apartments, and it just took a really long time to get any kind of assistance,” Li said. “Once the city got involved, and we got a bit of media attention regarding the cave-in of the ceiling and the mistreatment from the development company, the city got involved, and things got a bit better.” 

Assistance denied

Li moved into a one-bedroom apartment on the ground floor of a low-rise rental building on Dow Avenue in March 2019. When they first moved in, nobody informed them that the building had been the subject of a rezoning application and was slated for demolition and redevelopment. 

Li soon discovered that not only were they facing demoviction, they were also excluded from any form of tenant assistance because they had moved into the apartment after the rezoning application had been submitted. 

“A lot of people who aren’t covered would be like myself, who came in after the deadline for the eligibility for tenant assistance policy. So because the rezoning happened or the rezoning application was submitted in December of 2018 and I moved in March of 2019, I don’t qualify,” said Li.

Since then, Li said the building has been sold to multiple developers, and five years later, many of Li’s previous neighbours who had been living there when the rezoning application was submitted have moved out. New tenants have replaced them, and some were not informed that the building was to be demolished and that they would be ineligible for assistance. 

The TAP requires developers to build the same number of rental units in new developments as those occupied before redevelopment. It also requires developers to provide rental assistance in the form of the right of first refusal to the tenants and a unit similar to the one they were evicted from at a comparable rent, among other protections. Some developers drag out the process and allow the building to fall into disrepair, pressuring tenants into moving out before redevelopment. 

Community organization ACORN praised the policy on its website, describing it as “the best anti-demoviction protections in Canada.” The Beacon reached out several times to ACORN for comment on this story but, at the time of writing, had received no response.

The policy excludes tenants who moved into the building after the rezoning application was submitted to the city. It also excludes tenants who are the roommates of other tenants, even if they have separate leases. 

“There were a couple of people who were in roommate situations, and they actually had different addresses. Technically, they were the same unit number, but it was, for example, units 101 A and 101 B,” Li said. “They had separate leases, but because that was legally just one suite, it doesn’t count as two.” 

Li, who has physical mobility issues and uses a walker, has had some health issues in recent years that make it difficult for them to work full-time. They currently pay $860 in rent for the one-bedroom they share with their two cats, Boston and Stella. If Li had to move to a market rental, a one-bedroom apartment in Metrotown would cost about $2,500 monthly. 

“If I have pets, which I do, then it bumps up to $2,500 or $3,000,” Li said. “If they allow pets, then they automatically increase the price because, well, they’re in high demand.”

Li’s neighbour, Marilou Villar, is a single mother who moved into the building on Dow Avenue in October 2020. She lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her two sons. She partitioned the apartment to create some privacy for herself and her sons. She works as a caregiver and makes less than $3,000 monthly. 

Almost 30% of her monthly income goes to rent and utilities; rent is $870, and utilities are $50. The rest of her income goes to support herself and her two sons. Her eldest son, a student at BCIT, works part-time, but his contract ends in October. If evicted, Villar does not know what will happen to them. A one-bedroom market rental in Burnaby would eat up about 75% of her monthly income; a two-bedroom market rental would cost almost 100% of her monthly income. 

“It’s hard for me as a single mom, you know, I provide everything for my kids, and it’s not easy,” she said. “I work hard for them to survive, so when I heard that we are not included in TAP, I felt disappointed.” 

Li, Villar, and some of their neighbours attended the public hearing for the rezoning on June 27, 2023, sent correspondence to council, and spoke at the hearing about their situation, but nothing happened.

“A representative from our Dow Avenue tenants’ group spoke with Mayor Hurley, and several of us showed up to the hearing for our rezoning in City Hall, and I spoke about my situation there. I have, on and off, been in contact with the City of Burnaby Housing Task Force regarding my situation,” Li said. “So far, all I’ve gotten is there’s not really anything that can be done.” 

Villar described a similar experience in interactions with the city. 

“We went there and I opened up my situation. I talked to them, but they said they can’t do anything, because that’s the policy,” Villar said.

Policy under review

During a council meeting on April 29, 2024, Coun. Alison Gu brought forth a motion requesting that staff look into another group excluded from the TAP: people living in secondary rentals that are now eligible for redevelopment into multi-unit housing after the recent provincial zoning changes. The current TAP was amended in 2022 to include secondary rentals in buildings with less than five units, which are being consolidated into a larger development, but other secondary rentals are still excluded. 

“I expect that these bills will have an impact on expediting development and, to that end, likely to expedite displacement that is caused by development as well,” Gu said at the April 29 meeting. “The vast majority of renters in our city, 40% of residents, live in secondary market rentals, so they rent from an individual and that individual has the right to redevelop their property.” 

Gu told the Beacon that recent provincial zoning legislation will likely necessitate changes to the policy.

“The policy will be reviewed insofar as the Province has made changes to the legislation to allow/authorize local governments to explicitly have Tenant Assistance Programs, whereas our policy was a workaround that was attached to the conditions of the rezoning,” Gu wrote in an email response. “Likely the TAP will be reviewed in general, as the change to include secondary rentals (not secondary suites, though most secondary suites are also secondary rentals) is relatively significant. The review is still being conducted, as the motion I had put forward was also to utilize updated Housing Needs Assessment data.”

Some councillors said they were concerned that this would disincentivize private landlords from renting out units in their homes because it would mean they would need to provide assistance to their renters if they decide to evict them for redevelopment. 

“I don’t want to be going into an area where we are certainly seeing a drop in people’s renting their single-family secondary suites because we’re bringing in a policy which would prohibit people developing without having similar kinds of support for what exists for the displacement of rental units.” Coun. Sav Dhaliwal said. 

He added that he had heard from community members that the city’s processes regarding secondary suite rentals, such as basement suites, are becoming more cumbersome, and potential landlords are increasingly reluctant to rent out their secondary suites.

This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

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