Tag Archives: housing

Unsuitable Housing Areas Grouped Together in Ottawa According to 2016 Census – DRAFT

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By: Katie Jacobs

Jeanette Tossounian looks at her file filled with notices she collected since she moved into community housing. She sleeps on the massage table (right) instead of the mattress (left). Photo by Katie Jacobs.

According to an analysis of Canada’s 2016 census, Alta Vista is the worst area to find suitable housing in Ottawa.

Among the top five are Kitchissippi, Somerset, Bay, Gloucester – Southgate, and the Rideau areas. These wards are in close proximity to each other.

Jeanette Tossounian, an artist, author and activist, lives in community housing within the Rideau vicinity. Her apartment has a vinyl covered mattress with brown blankets in her living room.

She never sleeps on it.

Instead, Tossounian sleeps on a massage table, with the lights on, so bed bugs can’t reach her.

“It’s really uncomfortable,” says Tossounian.

Each of her walls are decorated with at least three pieces of artwork. She jokes that one painting is probably worth more than her apartment.

“It’s an old building, so there’s always things breaking down,” says Tossounian, who experienced her water being shut off, asbestos notifications, and fire alarm tests at least twice a month. “The elevators are always breaking down. I’ve heard of people being stuck … it missed my floor a couple times.”

Tossounian moved in last April with no possessions after being wrongfully accused and arrested for burning down her own art gallery. Before, she was living in an office space and sleeping on a futon.

Although Tossounian says the apartment itself is fine, she wants to leave.

“I don’t want to be permanently in housing, and there’s a lot of people who, like me, just see it as a temporary thing, but the only other thing that is more temporary is a shelter,” she says.

Larissa Silver, the director of community services at the Youth Services Bureau, says finding stable housing is difficult because of Ottawa’s high demand and competition.

“There are very few vacancies in the city … so landlords can be pickier on who they choose to rent their apartment to,” explains Silver, who works with youth who seek more accessible and reasonable housing. “In a tight market with very limited income, your options are pretty limited.”
Silver says she works with youth to understand their legal rights with landlords. She adds there is some discrimination based on age or stigma towards youth behaviour.

Silver works in two transitional housing shelters that help youth prepare for independent living and long – term housing. She says she works within the Vanier, Kitchissippi, and Bayward areas.

“Some of those areas … have a higher concentration of lower income housing,” explains Silver.

According to Canada Without Poverty, three million Canadian households are unaffordable, below standards, or overcrowded. ( )

Michele Biss is the legal education and outreach coordinator at Canada Without Poverty.

She explains access to services or housing crises is usually the reason why low-income populations are grouped together.

Biss adds people who are disabled, racialized, women, have mental health issues, are single mothers, indigenous, and LGBTQ often experience unsuitable housing. She says many of these individuals don’t have access to legal resources to assert their rights.

Biss mentions Herongate as an example, where an entire block of people was evicted, including a large Somali population, in order to build a higher income condo.

“They have driven people out of their homes. They have harassed people, they have bullied people, the conditions of the housing prior to this change were so horrifyingly terrible,” says Biss.

Herongate is within the Alta Vista district.

Tossounian is working on her second film documentary about her life, as well as others, in community housing.

“I’m happy to have a place of my own, and an address,” says Tossounian. “But the lack of a nice good sleep … I look forward to moving out and buying nice new furniture I know will have no bed bugs in it.”

She adds she is going to apply to the government’s $40 billion plan to see if she qualifies for an affordable housing complex.

“Nobody really wants problems just because they need a place to stay,” she concludes.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5025126-2017-Poverty-Progress-Profiles-318.html

Need major repairs? Better hope you have a good landlord

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Located at 235 Cooper St., the Manhattan building is just one of hundreds in Ottawa's Somerset Ward that tenants say need major repairs.
Located at 235 Cooper St., the Manhattan building is in Ottawa’s Somerset Ward, an area with a high number of buildings tenants say need major repairs. (Photo credit: Marc-André Cossette)

Note: The tenant featured in this story asked that his name not be included. A fictional name is used instead.


Justin Smith knew what he was getting into when he moved into the Manhattan building at 235 Cooper St.

“It’s old,” Smith said with a chuckle. “It was built in the 1930s with 1930s sensibilities in mind.”

The Manhattan is an attractive, four-storey apartment block, with a red brick façade, and Art Deco-inspired doors and columns.

Jonas Langille worries that the large cracks running across the floors and walls in his apartment building are signs of an underlying structural problem.
Justin Smith wonders whether the large cracks running across the floors and walls in his apartment building are signs of an underlying structural problem. (Photo credit: Marc-André Cossette)

A stone’s throw from the bustle of Elgin Street, it was just the kind of place Smith was looking for in April 2015 when he moved in.

“I like living here. It’s got a little character,” he said.

But like dozens of other buildings in Ottawa’s downtown core, the Manhattan is starting to show its age.

“They do a great job of gussing it all up and making it look pretty good,” Smith said. “But there are some structural things you notice that are always in the back of your mind.”

Like a crumbling, three-foot-wide ceiling patch in the lobby, with several layers exposed. Elsewhere in the building, obvious cracks stretch six feet across the tiled floor, while others run the entire length of the hall’s textured walls.

“I wonder if that’s the wall itself or just the veneer,” Smith asked himself. “Is this a sign of things to come? Is this a sign that perhaps this building is not structurally sound? I’m not sure.”



(Click the note above to read the City of Ottawa’s entire Property Standards By-Law.)

According to analysis of data from Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey, more than 2,000 homes or apartments across Somerset Ward were reported as needing major repairs.

Source: Statistics Canada (2011 National Household Survey).

In Smith’s immediate neighbourhood alone, near the eastern edge of the ward, there are 455 homes or units that reportedly need major repairs.

People responding to the survey were asked to assess the condition of their residence. The survey provided examples of problems that would need major repairs, including defective plumbing or faulty wiring, as well as structural problems affecting walls, floors or ceilings.



(Click the note above to read Statistics Canada’s entire Housing Reference Guide for the 2011 National Household Survey.)

And it’s not just issues with the walls or floors that Smith has had to deal with.

“These were all two-pronged outlets,” he said, pointing to the newly installed electrical outlets.

Smith had to ask his landlord to update all of the outlets and wiring in his apartment, a job that he said required “tremendous work.”

And while he credited his landlord for accepting to do the work, Smith said he had to insist on the upgrade. “‘Well, why don’t you just use an adapter plug?’” his landlord asked him.

Even with the new outlets, Smith worries they aren’t properly grounded. “I’ve gotten a few shocks,” he said, adding that he’s still concerned about the risk of an electrical fire.

Pascale Ouellette is a lawyer with the University of Ottawa Community Legal Clinic. She said the clinic handles the vast majority of tenancy-related cases across the city, especially those involving low-income residents.

“What we generally see are minor and regular maintenance issues,” said Ouellette, adding that they deal with these kinds of cases “all the time.”

To Jonas Langille, the damaged ceiling in the lobby of the Manhattan building where he lives at 235 Cooper St. is a worrying sign of other potential issues with the building.
To Justin Smith, the damaged ceiling in the lobby of his apartment building might be a  sign of other potential issues. (Photo credit: Marc-André Cossette)

Ouellette said she and her colleagues will occasionally also treat cases involving major repairs, usually after a major flood or once a building is condemned.

While some landlords are more accommodating than others, Ouellette said the clinic will always support whatever decision the tenant decides to take. This might involve contacting the City of Ottawa’s Property Standards By-Law officers in order to issue a warning or fine, or instead filing an application with the Landlord and Tenant Board.

Smith said he’s grateful he hasn’t had to go that far. And as much as he likes the building, he said he’s looking forward to moving out sometime in the new year.

Overcrowded housing commonplace in Heron Gate

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A community located between Walkley Road and Heron Road have the highest number of overcrowded homes, according to an analysis of data obtained from Statistics Canada.

The National Household Survey, conducted in 2011 showed 575 households in the Heron Gate area were deemed “not suitable” according to National Occupancy Standards.

A home is considered suitable if it has enough bedrooms for the number of people living there. Age, sex and relationship between occupants also play a role.

The homes in this area account for just under 30 per cent of the total number of overcrowded homes in Ottawa recorded in the survey.

An area near Bayshore Park contained the second highest number of overcrowded homes, 560 of them not meeting the suitability standard.

Jean Cloutier, the councillor for Alta Vista ward said he’s aware of the issue.

“It is a community that has a bit of a vulnerable population. It has a lot of immigrants and new Canadians that live there,” he said.

“Some of the new arrivals to Canada are so large that I’m sure that translates into a statistic that would be called ‘not suitable’ in terms of the number of bedrooms for the number of people living there.”

Last year, Timbercreek Asset Management, delivered eviction notices to some residents in the area to build new rental units.

A member of Ottawa ACORN, a group that advocated to delay the evictions, said half of their members were evicted in the area.

“Now it’s just a blob of vacant land being developed for high end rentals,” they said in an email.

But residents in the Heron Gate community aren’t the only ones affected by overcrowding.

A map showing the census tracts with the highest number of overcrowded homes. Made using data from the 2011 National Household Survey. Dark blue areas indicate communities with a higher number of overcrowded homes.

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