‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’
Heron Gate tenants band together to fight second round of evictions
With the Sept. 30 eviction deadline for 105 Heron Gate households fast approaching, and with a national spotlight cast on their plight, some residents are ready to take a stand. ‘This is our neighbourhood and we are staying.’ Taylor Blewett reports.
Though visually imperceptible, a front line has been drawn along Heron Road, Baycrest Drive and Sandalwood Drive in Ottawa’s Heron Gate rental community.
It runs across the neighbourhood’s overgrown lawns and overflowing garbage bins, in front of aging townhouses from which tenants have emerged to form a coalition that proclaims “#DefendHeronGate.”
“We are now being told, for the second time in two years, that our community will be destroyed and we have no say in the matter,” the coalition wrote recently, in a self-published article titled: “The Battle for Heron Gate Begins.”
“Enough is enough. This is our neighbourhood and we are staying.”
Earlier this year, a month after residents were invited to a “visioning session” with Heron Gate landlord Timbercreek to plan the future of their community, 105 households learned that vision did not include the homes they were living in.
Timbercreek announced in May that it intends to demolish 150 townhouses along three streets in its 16-hectare, 1,665 unit rental complex. In so doing it’s displacing hundreds of residents, many of whom are new immigrants and low-income earners, paying affordable rents for three- and fourbedroom units to house families twice that size.
Heron Gate is far from perfect, its tenants say — take a walk around the blocks slated for eviction and its dilapidation is evident — but for many of those tenants, it’s a home they’ve created, and won’t be able to replicate elsewhere.
Facing a rental market so unfriendly that they literally cannot find anywhere to move to, and because this is the second round of evictions at Heron Gate in recent years, they’re taking a stand.
On Sept. 30, the date by which tenants must move out, as per Timbercreek’s request, they don’t plan on being anywhere else but in their homes, come what may.
The landlord has yet to announce what it plans to build out of the rubble of the 150 homes slated for demolition.
But the homes are at the end of their life cycles, Timbercreek said, and 45 units are already vacant.
In 2016, 53 Heron Gate households relocated to make room for new low-rise apartments that are currently under construction on the site.
Critics have condemned the neighbourhood’s evolution as gentrification, in which low-income residents are pushed out to make room for renters with the appetite and capacity to pay for high-end units.
“It became apparent to me that a masterplan for the entire property was essential before any further development should occur at Heron Gate,” said Alta Vista Coun. Jean Cloutier before a community meeting held in January. “Timbercreek agreed, and is therefore initiating a developer-led secondary plan process to develop a longterm vision for the future of Heron Gate.”
While Timbercreek can’t build up in the neighbourhood until the secondary plan is solidified, it can, however, tear down.
“Timbercreek’s vision has always been for Heron Gate to be a diverse and sustainable community. A project of this magnitude, however, requires that tenants relocate during the revitalization process,” Timbercreek said in an emailed statement.
Leilani Farha, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, characterized Timbercreek’s actions very differently in a recently published Huffington Post opinion piece.
“Their focus does not seem to be on the well-being of their tenants and diversity of the cities where they hold assets. Instead, they practice in unscrupulous demographic engineering in search of profits: replacing poor and vulnerable people with those who possess greater purchasing power.”
Legally, it doesn’t appear Timbercreek has done anything wrong. It’s provided residents the requisite 120 days notice and compensation in the form of three months rent. It’s also voluntarily providing $2,000 in moving compensation, relocation assistance and negotiated discounts with Ottawa moving companies.
Some tenants have already leveraged the resources at their disposal and vacated their homes — a walk through the blocks of houses slated for demolition reveals recently emptied units, with furniture, mail, and the detritus of daily living left behind.
Last week, Timbercreek said 70 per cent of the households facing eviction have found new places to rent, and some have been able to buy homes. Of those households that chose to remain in Ottawa, more than 75 per cent have found homes within five kilometres of Heron Gate, Timbercreek said.
However, that still leaves a significant minority of remaining tenants with little more than six weeks to find a new home.
The Heron Gate Tenant Coalition has advised its members that they are not legally required to move out before Sept. 30. Timbercreek would have to apply to the provincial Landlord and Tenant Board to obtain an official eviction order. The coalition has retained Ottawa lawyer Daniel TuckerSimmons to represent many of its tenants in the case of an LTB hearing.
“Many of them are really committed to fighting this out, and for very good reasons, but most of them are driven to fight out of necessity,” Tucker-Simmons explained in an interview. Try as they might, many Heron Gate residents facing eviction just can’t find another place to live.
“The people they told me ‘move,’ and I don’t know where I can move to,” said Mohamed Iman, a Somali immigrant and father of seven.
He was on his way into a coalition meeting, where tenants got together to talk about the evictions. Iman said he accepts Timbercreek’s decision to demolish his home, but he can’t move out until he finds a new one.
“The property is for them, and I know that. But what can I do?”
As his family ’s sole breadwinner, making $2,200 a month working nights as a cleaner at the University of Ottawa, the housing search has proven immensely challenging.
Many of Iman’s neighbours have stories that sound a lot like his.
According to the Ottawa Neighbourhood Study, 57 per cent of the households in Ledbury-Heron Gate-Ridgemont are making under $50,000 in before-tax income, compared to a city-wide average of 29 per cent.
Forty-four per cent are immigrants, and 60 per cent belong to a visible minority.