‘The wild west’: Retirement residents struggling with steep fee increases

Article content

When 97-year-old Magdalena Rogall moved into an Ottawa retirement residence in 2018, she and her family were told she was getting a special rate to live there. What they didn’t know was that the rate was temporary and could be taken away.

Earlier this year, Rogall, who lives at the Ravines retirement home, was told she had been benefitting from a “marketing discount” that was ending. Alavida Lifestyles, the company that operates the Ravines and other retirement residences in the city, said maintaining the discounts to Rogall and other residents was not financially sustainable.

Article content

Rogall, whose first language is German, was asked to sign a new lease that included fee increases the company said reflected the removal of her marketing discount. Her children say they were not told about the meeting, nor were they asked to review the document before she signed it, although they are routinely consulted about most issues. They say she did not understand what she was signing. They were shocked to learn its implications.

Rogall’s monthly bill for a 400-square-foot studio residence and the services provided will go up about $2,500 a month, an increase her family says is unbelievable. Rogall’s monthly bill was $5,380 in May. By October 2025, it will be $7,869 a month. It will be phased in with incremental increases beginning this month.

“They were looking for people and they roped us in with this loophole and now they are clawing it back,” Dan Rogall said. He and his sister, Brigitte Selkirk, say their mother can’t afford the steep increase and they are worried a move would be physically difficult for her.

Rogall’s family plans to fight the increase. They say Alavida is using a loophole to take advantage of vulnerable seniors who can’t afford to pay hundreds, or thousands, of dollars more each month for accommodation.

Article content

And they are not alone. Other residents of Ottawa retirement homes run by Alavida are also facing steep monthly increases, something Alavida’s chief financial officer, Manny DiFilippo, calls part of a difficult, but necessary, decision for the company.

“During these difficult times as an operator of seniors’ homes, the revenue base makes it very difficult to continue to support these temporary discounts and maintain the level of services required to operate the homes,” DiFilippo said. “A difficult decision was made to eliminate the temporary marketing discounts as the revenue pressures were too great to support the required level of services and expenses needed to operate these homes.”

In an interview, DiFilippo acknowledged the situation was hard for many residents.

“We can no longer financially sustain these discounts. I know it is hard on seniors.”

Families and residents say the company is taking advantage of elderly residents, but experts say there might not be much they can do about it because of a lack of regulation around retirement homes and seniors housing.

Article content

“It’s the wild west out there,” said Ottawa West Nepean NDP MPP Chandra Pasma, who has met with residents and raised the issue in the Ontario legislature.

Retirement home residents pay rent as well as fees for services as part of monthly accommodation bills. Rent for most retirement homes is subject to regulations limiting both the amount and the number of increases each year, but there are no such regulations for the fees that retirement residents also pay.

Pasma and another NDP MPP, Jessica Bell from the Toronto riding of University-Rosedale, are drafting a private members’ bill that, if passed, would limit the number of times a home could raise care fees to once a year, similar to rent. It would also restrict the amount that fees could be raised, similar to the annual guideline for rent increases. The bill would require buy-in from the majority Progressive Conservative government.

At Park Place, another Alavida retirement residence in Ottawa, residents were told in January that the company was ending marketing discounts, effectively raising fees by hundreds of dollars each month. Some residents are submitting complaints through the provincial landlord and tenant board, which is a lengthy process, but at least 23 residents have moved out because of the increases, said Penny Eccles, chair of the residents’ council at Park Place.

Article content

“These seniors are facing incredible stress,” she said.

Eccles said those marketing discounts — which ranged from $400 to $3,000 a month for Park Place residents — had no end date attached to them. Residents learned they were ending during a town hall meeting and later at individual meetings.

Eccles, who had a marketing incentive of $1,850 a month, said she was never told, nor was it written in her original contract, that there was an end date to the discount. “I think it is a breach of contract. I would not have moved here if I knew in two years they would raise my rent by $1,850.”

DiFilippo said the discounts were never meant to be permanent. They were “never communicated to residents or included in their lease as a permanent rent discount. The very nature of the caption being a marketing discount speaks to what it is.”

The company will be more careful about how it deals with discounts in the future, he added. “Yes, we could have been clearer. No question.”

Pasma said not only were residents not told that the marketing discounts would expire, but they also faced “high-pressure tactics” to sign new marketing agreements to pay the higher fees.

Article content

Pasma said she had heard from some residents who couldn’t eat or sleep because they were so worried.

“I think this is unconscionable, that you would treat seniors this way, causing stress and forcing people out of their homes,” Pasma said. “Treating seniors as cash cows is unacceptable.”

She has reached out to the Retirement Home Regulatory Authority, which oversees retirement homes in Ontario, but was told it was not an issue they dealt with. Pasma said the provincial government had not responded to calls to take action to protect seniors from this kind of fee increase.

Eccles said she was disappointed the Ontario government was not doing anything about the situation. “The issue has been brought to their attention and they are just waving it off.”

A question to the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs was redirected to the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority.

RHRA spokesperson Raymond Chan said the Retirement Homes Act and its regulations outlined “what we have authority over and what we do not.” That does not include retirement home fees, which are subject to the Residential Tenancies Act.

Article content

“While we understand this can be a difficult situation for residents, the Retirement Homes Act and regulations do not prescribe fees or fee limits,” Chan said. The Landlord and Tenant Board in Ontario addresses disputes between residential landlords and tenants, including those living in retirement homes.

Graham Webb, executive director of the Toronto-based Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, said the organization had long pushed for meals and care services in Ontario retirement homes to be regulated the same way rents were to save seniors from crushing increases in their monthly bills. Fees often make up a higher proportion of those bills than rent does.

“There should be limits on how much retirement homes can increase meals and care services,” Webb said.

He added there should also be housing subsidies for low-income seniors, especially now, “because pension incomes are not keeping up with market rents.” That would enable residents to afford market rental rates, he said, but he was not aware of any level of government considering rent subsidies.

“Older adults, and particularly low-income older adults, are facing a housing crisis and if they are economically evicted, they often don’t have the ability to get other suitable accommodation on the rental market,” Webb said.

Article content