‘Over the moon’ about temporary rent cap
A Fairview woman facing a 90 per cent rent increase was “over the moon” Wednesday after the province stepped in to temporarily control skyrocketing rents during the pandemic.
Grace Fogerty was reacting to new rules stipulating Nova Scotia rents cannot increase by more than two per cent per year and that landlords will not be able to get an eviction order for renovations. Both changes are retroactive to September and will stay in place until Feb. 1, 2022, or until the state of emergency brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is lifted.
“That's just over the moon for me,” Fogerty said. “I had no place to go. There was no place to rent.”
Since she went public with her situation last month, the 63-year-old said she's heard from lots of people in Fairview facing “ridiculous” rent increases ranging from $200 a month to nearly five times that.
“They're going to put a lot of people homeless if they lift it,” Fogerty said of the cap on rent increases, which are
slated to last only as long as the state of emergency.
Fogerty wants to stay in the 60-year-old building she's called home for a decade. “I'm happy there. Once the noise (from renovations) stops, I'm happy.”
Last month Fogerty was looking at a difficult choice. Her landlord Navid Saberi showed up at the door of her Dutch Village Road apartment with a letter indicating the rent on the one-bedroom place she pays $725 a month for now will jump on April 1, 2021, by $650 — an increase of 90 per cent. That had Fogerty looking at either paying her rent, or paying the almost $500 she shelled out monthly for the heart medications that keep her alive.
Since reading of her plight in The Chronicle Herald, several pharmacists reached out to help Fogerty apply for Pharmacare. She qualified for some help there and also discovered one drug maker offers subsidies for people using their heart medication. Overall, her drug bills are now down to $200 a month.
CELEBRATING WITH COFFEE
What's she going to do to celebrate?
“I'm going to have a cup of coffee. I haven't been able to sleep in days,” Fogerty said.
“You're stressed out. You don't know if you're going to be homeless or not. Come April 1,
I was looking at being homeless. At 63, I'd never thought about being homeless. This is just crazy — the terror that it makes you feel is unreal.”
Saberi — who didn't respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the new cap on rent increases — told Fogerty the 90 per cent rent hike was due to renovations that have been going on in the building for over a year.
“I've had plaster fall down, my pictures fall off the wall, metal grinding until 8 o'clock at night,” Fogerty said. “It's not right.”
After the news of her situation broke last month, another nearby landlord reached out to tell Fogerty about a place he had for rent just around the corner. But when she went to look at the apartment, the superintendent told her she'd need spotless credit to be considered.
“I don't have a perfect credit score,” she said. “I'm honest about it.”
‘DON'T NEED A LOT'
Fogerty works at a Joe Howe Drive gas station. Her takehome pay every two weeks is $980.
“I don't make big wages, but I have enough to keep me alive and keep me going,” she said. “I don't need a lot in life.”
She described adding potatoes and frozen vegetables she buys on sale to a can of soup. “That's three meals,” she said. “You want to add meat? That's like luxury living.”