Respect, Rights & Responsibility

If 2011 brought knowledge of the relationship between respect, rights & responsibility, 2012 will bring the action necessary to ensure fairness between upholding responsibilities, fighting for rights and the respect that comes with the correlation between the two. With so many goals this year, I have already begun listing and scheduling what I will do for myself (M3), but my community (my circl3) and global society (th3 world) have more difficult challenges to coming up with tangible solutions to problems and pathways to change. Ideas please!

One discrepancy in rights & responsibilities that plagues Toronto: the Tenancy Act.

After living in two pest-infested buildings in the St. Paul's area of Toronto, each with their own lazy superintendent and completely inefficient landlord, I realized there are many holes in the document that is supposed to protect rent-paying tenants' rights. Especially with all the cuts in affordable housing, the residency rights of those that have managed to find affordable housing should be particularly important to uphold, as there is little to no potential to move or change, and this will only add to the mounting homelessness and affordable housing issues.

To put it simply: Tenants, Superintendents & Landlords each have their own set of rights & responsibilities:

Tenant's Responsibilities: pay rent / take care of unit / nonegative impact on others
Tenant's Rights: maintained apartment / cleanlypublic space / no negative impact by others

Superintendent's Responsibilities: collect rent / maintain public space / no negative impact on others
Superintendent's Rights: living quarters / income / nonegative impact by others

Landlord's Responsibilities: pay super / ensure super & tenants uphold mutual responsibilities
Landlord's Rights: collect rent / ensure superintendent& tenants maintain building

If the Tenants, the Superintendent and the Landlord each uphold their responsibilities and in return receive their rights, there is a system of fairness and justice that maintains mutual respect between all parties.

However, when the Tenant upholds all their responsibilities for months, and has all their rights infringed upon, this system of respect no longer works. All the Tenant can theoretically do to level the playing field is stop upholding their own responsibilities a.k.a. stop paying rent. Unfortunately this is not a viable solution: it's illegal for the Tenant to not maintain their responsibilities of paying rent. Meanwhile when a Superintendent or Landlord does not maintain their responsibilities of maintenance or otherwise, thereby violating the Tenant's rights, the illegality of their actions are often barely addressed, despite the fact that we have a justice system built just for this.

The Landlord and Tenancy Board is supposed to ensure that when Tenants have their rights violated, the Superintendent and Landlord are held responsible, and a method of delivering fairness to all parties is developed. Unfortunately, when I filed a free T2 for having the enjoyment of my home severely interfered with, being coerced to move out, being threatened with eviction, and being yelled and sworn at for insisting the Landlord and Superintendent uphold their responsibilities, the response two months later was less than appealing. As much as I did receive some (less than 1/4 of what was asked for) funding for damages, the severe pest-control issues and violation of Tenancy rights were barely addressed. Ten months after first reporting an infestation of ants and mice, the building has had a pest control professional come in only three times, once for the building as a whole. Apparently other apartments in this building have bed bugs, cockroaches and continue to suffer with mice - this continued ant infestation (along with rude, loud yelling, running, barking and playing in the hallway by the Superintendent and her family) is enough to coerce my household to move out before other pests and problems spread too.

Considering my personal experiences with Toronto Superintendents and Landlords, as well as the Tenancy Act and the Landlord and Tenancy Board, I can clearly see where the problems are and potential avenues for change. I contacted both the prompt MP of St. Paul's the Hon. Carolyn Bennett and the M.I.A. MPP Dr. Eric Hoskins and will work with the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations to ensure that the issues for Toronto Tenants are addressed. Rights and Responsibility will create Respect!

My first goal for my circl3 is well underway: by utilizing community services, I want to ensure Tenants know how to fight for their rights, have resources clearly advertised, support clearly available, and that Landlords and Superintendents are actually held accountable for their violations of rights and failure of upholding responsibilities. Creating changes to the currently slightly-inefficient Tenancy Act, particularly in terms of assurance that addressed concerns are actually implemented, is a rather big project, but with a bit of knowledge on Tenancy laws and action in terms of raising awareness, getting legal advice and lobbying the government, maybe some small change for the better can be achieved.