The NB Coalition for Tenants Rights welcomes today’s release of guidelines on housing discrimination from the NB Human Rights Commission.
For the past several months, we have heard countless stories of housing discrimination. People have told us about being denied housing because they have children, due to racism, because of their economic status and so on.
The government’s own rental review showed that 19% of tenants who responded to the survey said they had trouble finding a place to live because they had children.
While these guidelines are helpful, we remain concerned that enforcement mechanisms are lacking and that in an environment with limited protections for tenants, few tenants will feel comfortable pursuing complaints.
With landlords able to raise rents by as much as they want and evict people without having to provide any reason, there remains a disproportionate amount of power in the hands of landlords. The onus remains on tenants to initiate complaints without access to any legal aid if they face evictions or rent increases. In an environment where tenants have few rights, where vacancies are extremely low, and with rents increasing more than ever, tenants are under pressure to suffer injustice in silence.
Neither the Human Rights Commission, nor the Residential Tenancies Tribunal have the powers they need to make access to housing truly free from discrimination. This is why we are calling for a new Residential Tenancies Act that uses a right to housing framework to protect tenants. This means guaranteeing the right to security of tenure, establishing robust rent controls and creating eviction prevention programs among other protections.
We remain committed partners to advance these goals as the government begins working on its review of the legislation as recommended by the Rental Review Report.