Making rent more of a struggle during pandemic

Peterborough residents are faced with more struggles when it comes to precariousness of housing and rents during the pandemic, says housing resource program manager at Community Counselling Resource Centre.

People who find themselves struggling to pay rent in the pandemic were the same people struggling to pay rent prior to the pandemic, said Annie Hedden, program manager of the housing resource centre credit counselling service and community services programs at Community Counselling and Resource Centre.

“Seventy per cent of all job losses across Ontario were women and lower-income workers. We are seeing a lot of people in retail or service industry who have reduced incomes and are struggling to pay rent,” she said, adding many are now in arrears.

“We normally run programs providing emergency financial assistance for arrears,” she said. “Usually, we see people who owe about $1,000 or $2,000. Now we are seeing people who are owing their landlords upwards of $10,000.”

Arrears are hard to overcome once that kind of level is reached, she said. “We haven’t seen the fallout in terms of evictions yet.”

Peterborough has significantly lower incomes compared to the provincial average, she said.

“Our vacancy rate is lower than the average and our rents are higher,” she said, “or as high as some major cities like Toronto.”

There are many things that can lead to housing precarity in the city that are being affected by the pandemic, she said.

“Some people are trapped in inadequate housing, so people who were planning to move to a better place before the pandemic are now stuck there,” she said.

“Unfortunately, people are living with people who are not healthy for them, so they may be in an abusive situation or a situation where other roommates or even landlords are taking advantage of them.”

She has seen landlords helping tenants.

“Some small-scale landlords have agreed to forgive arrears or have agreed to accept payment of a lower amount to preserve those tenancies,” she said. “Some of these landlords have had really good, strong tenants and they don’t want to lose a good tenant because of arrears in a pandemic.”

Hedden said she is worried for tenants who make payment arrangements with their landlords to pay off arrears because people are at greater risk of being evicted if they do that.

The new Bill 84 allows landlords to evict tenants for nonpayment without taking them to a tribunal, she noted. “It expedites the process for landlords and puts tenants at greater risk.”