New Brunswick tenants fight against a system leaves them without protection from unreasonable rent increases, arbitrary eviction, and persistent harassment from landlords.
These are the findings of a report released today by the New Brunswick Coalition for Tenants Rights.
The report is based on empirical research conducted by UNB and St. Thomas University professors over a two-year period. It includes 346 participants in a province-wide survey from different demographic backgrounds and geographical locations. It also supported the survey with qualitative focus groups with groups of New Brunswick tenants and with a scoping review of recent news stories and academic literature.
The report was produced with funding from the Canadian Housing Transformation Centre.
“Our report draws attention to the desperation and anger tenants feel about having been left unprotected in a rapidly changing rental market,” said report lead author Tobin LeBlanc Haley, who is also a spokesperson for the Coalition.
“Government authorities and some opposition parties continuously talk about ‘balance’ between the interests of tenants and landlords, but they neglect the huge power imbalance between the two,” she said. “To establish something like balance, we need to bulk up tenant protections in a big way.”
New Brunswick tenants, the report finds, are worried about losing their homes, with tenants with disabilities, single parents, and racialized tenants over-represented in this group.
Three quarters of respondents said they were worried about rent increases, while a third said they endured unsafe living conditions, which range from units in disrepair to landlords who walk into private bedrooms unannounced.
“New Brunswick tenants should have a right to reasonable enjoyment of their home,” said co-author and Coalition spokesperson Kristi Allain.
Qualitative data show that tenants were concerned about housing unaffordability and sometimes took extraordinary measured to afford their rental homes. These included eating poorly, missing car payments, and forging medical needs, like dental appointments and prescription drugs. They expressed concerns that they couldn’t get ahead, feared that a rent increase might lead to homelessness and avoid complaints against their landlords for fear of retaliatory evictions.
“What little protections our Residential Tenancies Act provides is also undermined by tenants’ fears that the rules will not actually be applied, or that they may eventually face retaliation from landlords who want to evict them,” said co-author and Coalition spokesperson Matthew Hayes.
The report’s recommendations cover issues like the need for rent control and the inclusion of public housing tenants within the protections offered by the RTA.
Its recommendations also spell out how the province’s residential tenancies regulations need to change to provide adequate protections for current rental housing markets.
The Coalition is calling for the establishment of an impartial residential tenancies tribunal that hears evidence and that has power to enforce provisions of the RTA and review all eviction proceedings.
“Low-income tenants also should have access to legal support to help them defend themselves on landlord-tenant disputes. Currently, Legal Aid certificates do not cover these issues, yet we know that losing your home is pretty devastating, especially for low-income households with fewer resources to help defend themselves,” said Tobin LeBlanc Haley.
The recommendations, if enacted, would also allow the Tenant-Landlord Relations Office to initiate a complaint against a landlord on the public’s behalf.
Allain summed up the state of renting in New Brunswick, stating, “We see a lot of pain and anger amongst tenants in the province. Tenants believe that the system is not protecting them and instead works in the interests of landlords.”
“If enacted, our recommendations, many of which are long overdue, work to make renting in this province better for tenants. It will help alleviate the stress and fear associated with leaving rental concerns to the whims of the market”.