Rooming houses generate 1,000 calls a year for city watchdogs, stats show

Ottawa’s rooming houses, which are under the microscope of health centres and councillors, have been generating more than 1,000 requests annually in recent years, city staff say.

The Somerset and Centretown community health centres published a report last fall drawing attention to the condition and oversight of rooming houses in those central areas.

Now, there are numbers to illustrate how busy the city is making sure rooming houses are acceptable for tenants.

Rooming houses, which have shared kitchens and bathrooms, are key providers of affordable units since the accommodations are usually cheaper than apartments. The community health centres are concerned about the conditions of rooming houses since the buildings often provide homes to vulnerable residents.

Unkempt rooming houses also anger neighbours.

Councillors on the community and protective services committee have the option to discuss the rooming house statistics during a regular meeting Thursday. Staff have provided councillors with the numbers ahead of the meeting.

The city regulates rooming houses, requiring landlords to pay an annual licensing fee and satisfy property conditions. The fire department and health unit need to sign off on new rooming houses.

There were 91 licensed rooming houses in the city and another four applications in the queue as of Jan. 31. The city says 15 licences have been cancelled, mostly because the buildings stopped operating as rooming houses.

Between 2012 and 2015, there were an average of 1,417 service requests annually related to rooming houses. The city was on track last year to log more than 1,000 calls, too. According to a call breakdown provided to council, the city received 970 requests between Jan. 1 and Nov. 1.

The city says the numbers might be double-counted in some cases since multiple departments could be involved for a call.

In some cases, a request relates to a tenant asking for help accessing social services.

The overwhelming majority of requests are generated by the city’s rooming house services staff, often during their proactive work making sure the buildings are adequate. A rooming house response team checks that landlords are properly maintaining their properties.

In their report last fall, the community health centres called on the city to make sure rooming houses comply with provincial rental laws and to develop a system to track and monitor complaints.

Part of the problem is identifying rooming houses so they fall under the city’s regulations.

Coun. Mathieu Fleury and the Sandy Hill community have been concerned about garbage storage at “bunker” houses, which are like super rooming houses, with multiple units having multiple bedrooms.