Metrolinx must support the evicted
Funding for light rail transit is recommitted and the city’s LRT council subcommittee has reconvened. The focus of the agenda for June’s council meeting is community benefits. Compensation for displaced tenants should be at the top of the list.
Four years ago, I was evicted from my apartment at the corner of King and Stirton streets, by Metrolinx, in order to make way for the LRT, along with the rest of my neighbours as our building was slated for demolition. Today all that remains is an empty lot, one of many along the King Street corridor.
When we were informed about the takeover of the property by Metrolinx and impending evictions, my partner and I began organizing with our neighbours, supported by a group called King Street Tenants United. We dealt with Metrolinx as a collective so that all tenants would be offered and entitled to the same conditions, equitable compensation and transparency. We knew that anything we would receive would be the result of this collective organizing and not handed out freely by the goodwill of Metrolinx. Through our organizing we were able to secure money for first and last months’ rent, utility reconnection fees at the new unit, as well as a rent subsidy and transit pass for one year.
Unfortunately, for many other tenants along King Street this wasn’t the case. As The Spectator reported at the time, some were pushed out with a few hundred dollars for moving costs, or nothing at all. We also heard stories of people pressured to leave before Metrolinx took over. These tenants received no compensation or support. We suspect Metrolinx offered property owners more for vacant possession, in order to avoid responsibility for the “dirty work” of displacement.
By now, our Metrolinx rent subsidy has long expired. Rents in the neighbourhood have more than doubled, affordable housing options are slim to none and the units lost during this process have not been replaced. Where did everyone end up? Does Metrolinx know? Does Metrolinx care?
As members of King Street Tenants United, we conducted a “survey of displacement” to estimate the number of homes and businesses slated for demolition. We worked from the Metrolinx acquisition list, which listed 90 properties. We walked the route, knocking on doors, talking with residents and business owners, counting mailboxes and water meters. We counted 168 rental apartments, 12 singlefamily houses and 72 businesses. Demolitions are concentrated on the section of King Street between Wellington and Ottawa. This is a working-class district with the few remaining affordable neighbourhoods in the city, home to many low-income renters.
In our view, the LRT was never primarily a transit project but rather a development scheme to displace the poor and working-class from the core of the lower city. Along with plans for the train came new Transit Oriented Corridor plans that unzoned land along the route, increasing property values overnight and attracting a new wave of developers and investors. Since then, there have been countless stories of renovictions, demovictions, condo conversions. Rents across the neighbourhood have gone up, pushing people out. There are many pseudonyms that get thrown around, like revitalization, but let’s call it what it is. Social cleansing. Gentrification. Displacement.
At this point, the least Metrolinx and the city can do is be honest about the number of rentals demolished and tenants evicted and reconnect with all households displaced. They should extend our rent subsidies for the duration of the construction period and offer us the right of first refusal to move into new affordable housing units built along the corridor. Leftover land acquired by Metrolinx should be kept under public ownership and donated to social housing developers. At a minimum, rental units demolished should be replaced one-for-one with new social housing units. Metrolinx should be made to answer for its treatment of tenants in Hamilton before starting projects elsewhere and wreaking havoc on other communities.