Battling cancer — and eviction
Tenants fight being tossed from longtime Parkdale home which has now been sold
Melissa Bourque is battling a terminal illness and may have only months to live.
Soon, she might not even have a place to live.
The Parkdale resident faces eviction from her longtime residence at 1336 King St. W.
On a fixed income and diagnosed with cancer, with a medical prognosis of four months, Bourque, 71, claims her landlord has continually pressured her and fellow tenants to move out of the three- storey detached property, asking them repeatedly to agree to end their tenancies.
“I don’t know where I’ll go, (if I’m evicted),” she said during an interview last week at the property where she has lived for the past decade.
According to Parkdale Organize, an advocacy group representing the tenants in their fight to stay in their homes, Bourque’s rent cheque for September was returned to her last week, and she was informed she must move out by Oct. 1.
Cesar Bonilla, 84, who has lived at the property since emigrating from Guatemala via the U.S. in the early 1990s, was also served with an eviction notice from landlord Anka Cetkovic.
Pending an appeal to the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), Bonilla and his roommate, Marko Mejia, 78, will be legally required to move out of their basement apartment by Oct. 1.
Speaking through an interpreter, Bonilla said he had no reason at first to distrust his landlord’s intentions when he was presented with a N11 form, used for mutually ending a tenancy, back in mid-July by Cetkovic’s daughter, Marina Grmusa.
Based on his trust and esteem for Grmusa and her family, Bonilla readily signed the form, not realizing doing so would potentially spell the end of his tenancy after some 25 years at 1336 King St. W., near Dunn Avenue.
“I had no idea what the form was for, but I placed my trust (in Grmusa),” recalled Bonilla, who pointed out his relationship with Grmusa was strong enough he was entrusted to take over maintenance and cleaning of the entire house a few years before.
After signing the form, Bonilla, Meija and Bourque became concerned about the implications of what they had unwittingly agreed to.
They contacted Parkdale Organize and were advised not to hand over the documents, and instead to refuse to sign anything else and destroy the forms immediately.
The tenants say they were then approached on multiple occasions by Grmusa, as well as her husband, for the signed forms, which they refused to hand over. Parkdale Organize also sent a letter in late August addressed to Grmusa, demanding the eviction efforts cease.
Grmusa, a Toronto Public Health employee, confirmed she solicited the signatures of the tenants as part of her due diligence once the property was put up for sale.
She said her family has since accepted a conditional offer of purchase.
She said she sympathizes with the tenants, claiming she is assisting them with finding a new home, but maintains she is well within her legal rights to proceed with the evictions.
“I feel bad for them,” Grmusa said. “I understand where they’re coming from. It’s unfortunate.”
Grmusa also claimed not to be aware of Bourque’s significant health challenges.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I feel bad, but my mother is 78 and she can’t look after the place anymore.”
If the tenants can prove to the LTB they were misled, their evictions won’t be considered legal, said Geordie Dent of the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations (FMTA).
“Provincial legislation clearly outlines that a landlord can’t harass or coerce a tenant to sign a N11 agreement,” said Dent, executive director of FMTA.
Even if the building is sold, the tenants might yet be able to remain if the buyer doesn’t intend to move in, he said.
Runaway housing prices and record-low levels of vacancy in Parkdale and the rest of the Toronto rental market are resulting in a “tidal wave of illegal evictions,” Dent said.
He pointed to data from the LTB, as reported by The Globe and Mail, which found evictions sought after for reasons other than failure to pay rent have sharply risen.
Since 2013, the number of evictions for any reason has increased in Toronto by 23 per cent.
“Tenants are being put into this scenario, and it’s unfortunate,” Dent said. “It’s open season.”