Study warns of rooming house decline in face of rising costs
They’re costly to operate, aging rapidly and occupied by vulnerable and sometimes challenging tenants — but Ottawa’s rooming houses are the only alternative to homelessness for some residents.
And according to a new report, unless something changes the cost-benefit balance of rooming house operation, they face falling prey to the worst kind of landlord, or disappearing altogether.
The city hired Maclaren Municipal Consulting to produce a report about rental regulations in Ottawa. One area of focus in their study, published last week, was rooming houses. Licensed for years — unlike unlicensed bunkhouses catering to students — rooming houses have more than three bedrooms that are not occupied by a household, or more than eight bedrooms regardless of their occupants.
Obtaining a rooming house licence requires the owner to satisfy a list of health, safety and property standard conditions, and pay hundreds of dollars in licensing fees. Before the licensing regime came into effect, there was thought to be 400 rooming houses in Ottawa, according to the study’s authors. Today, there are 90.
“Landlords attending the workshop emphasized that the increasing costs of managing rooming houses is far exceeding the rate of increase in revenues,” the study’s authors wrote, summarizing feedback received during their consultation process.
While taxes, water rates and property standard expectations climb, rooming houses tend to host social assistance recipients and minimum-wage earners — a tenant base who can’t afford rent increases to cover their landlord’s higher operating costs.
“The long-term potential impacts are continued physical deterioration and ultimately demolition, sale of properties to bad rooming house operators or sale/ conversion of the property to other uses,” the study observed.
And that, according to Shea Kiely, executive director of Housing Help, would hurt the many Ottawans who can’t afford to pay market rent for their own one-bedroom apartment or have yet to secure a social housing space.
“Without rooming houses, they’d be either homeless or in the shelter system, which we know would cost our system more in the long run,” Kiely said.
No one is advocating for the end of rooming house licensing — the study noted a common understanding that it’s a necessary measure to protect vulnerable tenants. But something has to change if the city wants to make rooming house operation more sustainable.
Kiely suggested government funding for live-in or on-call staff to support tenants.
“People living in rooming houses have a lot of mental illness and addictions issues, and it can be a challenging population to manage ... (landlords) don’t have the skill set or the time to be dealing with these types of challenges.”
The study’s authors also laid out a number of policy options that could incentivize responsible rooming house operation.
From licence fee forgiveness to property tax incentives, to grants for rooming house renovations: “The City could consider providing incentives to good rooming house landlords, identified by the number of complaints and the results of inspections, thereby recognizing the importance of providing much needed affordable housing to low income households,” the study concluded.
The full text of the study is available online, and the public is invited to submit comments to rentalhousingreview@gmail.com. A final report on rental housing regulations, including recommendations, will be compiled and presented to city staff, who will then bring their own report on rental accommodations to council in the fall.