In the last several years landlords in Ottawa have been issuing eviction notices to an increasing number of people, data compiled by city staff shows.
Councillor Ariel Troster asked staff in February 2024 to look into and analyze data from the Ottawa Landlord Tenant Board (LTB) amid concerns about people being evicted unfairly. The city received the data from the board in August 2024.
“In Ward 14 and across the city, we continue to see the same pattern play out, where many long-term tenants are served N13s, cosmetic changes to the unit are made, and the unit is relisted for a much higher rent – leaving low-income tenants, often seniors, with nowhere to go,” Troster said in her inquiry.
She asked staff to figure out the year-over-year rate of how many notices to terminate tenancy were sent to the board between 2010 and 2023.
What staff found were increases of well over 200 per cent for notices sent to tenants in the last several years. Huge rises in notices were specifically for landlords raising rents above guidelines or repairing/demolishing the unit.
The councillor asked for the data on the following forms submitted:
Rent increases, repairs being made to units is increasing
City staff said that there was an increase in all notices between 2010 and 2023, however during the pandemic the provincial government placed a moratorium on any evictions between March 19 and Sept. 14, 2020 and again April 8 to June 2, 2021.
On top of this staff also note there was an Ontario-wide rent freeze in 2021.
Despite this, staff said that notices to increase rent jumped 1,158 per cent between 2020 and 2022.
Prior, landlords were routinely asking for more rent between 2011 and 2019 with a 527 per cent increase in forms over that time. During 2020 this decreased briefly.
Landlords filing notices for repairs/demolishing units was “stable” the data shows between 2017 and 2019 and then increased by 483 per cent from 2019 to 2022.
These types of incidents are sometimes known as “renovictions” with housing advocates pointing it as a loophole for many landlords.
The number of damage/overcrowding and above guideline rent notices decreased in 2020, but the number of all notices “statistically” increased after that period.
Between 2010 and 2019 there was a 135 per cent increase in the number of overcrowding/damage notices filed in the nation’s capital, then a 40 per cent decrease in 2020.
“However, between 2020 and 2022 the number of N5s increased by 54%,” staff wrote in their response to Troster.
Another pattern shows notices for a landlord/family member needing the unit increased by 15 per cent between 2010 and 2018, but between 2019 and 2023 that jumped to 139 per cent.