It was a knock at the door that ignited the battle.
As Yanick Marion hustled early one morning to get to work, the manager of his apartment building had a message: “You have to leave. You don’t have a choice,” he recalls.
The manager, Marion says, was insistent that electrical upgrades were needed in the aging 36-unit complex in Montreal.
“It’s dangerous for your life, and the bank wants you to leave,” Marion says he was told.
Other tenants received the same message — and many left, watching as their former apartments were given a fresh coat of paint, new windows and appliances, and the rent went up as new tenants came in.
So-called “renovictions” are up sharply across Canadian cities, complicating an already challenging housing situation.
In 2018, there were 37,000 new apartments built nationwide, but demand increased by 50,000 units, according to tracking done by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
The smallest provincial capital, Charlottetown, has one of the lowest rental vacancy rates in the country. It hovers just above zero per cent, and new Kijiji rental listings last just minutes before apartments are snapped up.
In Montreal, housing advocate Martin Blanchard says it’s a scenario that has happened before — every time vacancy rates drop toward zero, new owners snap up rental stock, renovate the units and increase the rent.
Blanchard says foreign firms are buying up older apartment complexes, adding to the problem of people being forced out of their homes. (CBC)
“We used to get 50 to 100 calls per year,” from people complaining about being forced out of their apartments by landlords, says Blanchard, a community organizer with Comité logement de la Petite Patrie, a housing advocacy group. “Now we get many hundreds every year. It’s a crisis.”
Blanchard points largely to foreign firms, which are buying up older apartment complexes in Canada’s big cities and attempting to jettison existing tenants so the rent can be jacked up beyond limits set by provincial governments.
“It’s a way of making outrageous profits in a very short time. So they’ve got a little money put down, you can make a lot of profit, but it involves putting people on the street.”
Many renters don’t know the rules
Legislation protecting renters varies from province to province, but often a tenant cannot be evicted simply because a landlord wants to renovate. Renters should be able to remain at an apartment under existing rules.
If construction is so significant that a tenant must temporarily move out, the landlord is often required to allow them to return to the unit — at the same price.
But building owners don’t always follow the rules, says Kenneth Hale, director of legal services for the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.
“These kinds of evictions deserve special scrutiny about whether the applications are being brought in good faith.”
Kenneth Hale tells CBC’s David Common that legislation should be used to remove a landlord’s economic incentive to evict people. 0:27
Tenants Ontario urges renters facing these circumstances not to agree to anything and to contact them, though acknowledge they are inundated with calls now as they seek to bring cases forward to the provincial tribunal, the Landlord and Tenant Board.
Many of the cases that come across his desk involve low-level renovations that, he believes, are largely an excuse to get renters out in favour of those who will pay more.
The group has tracked a nearly four-fold increase in renovictions over the past couple of years, with cases reported to the centre soaring from 18 in 2015 to 71 in the 2018-19 fiscal year. It says the actual number is likely much higher, since the advocacy centre can only rely on what is reported to its office.
Hale wants new legislation to better protect tenants from renoviction.
“They should take away the economic incentive to evict people. And that would be by putting restrictions on the amount of rent increase that can happen in between tenants,” says Hale. “Because right now it’s unlimited. And we just see it as an opportunity for landlords to rent-gouge, and that shouldn’t be allowed.”
Toronto city Coun. Paula Fletcher says she wants the provincial government to require that a building permit is obtained before a renoviction, and have building inspectors ensure that the renovation/demolition is so substantial that it is indeed imperative the tenant move out.
“I think the Ontario government needs to change the bar for the Landlord Tenant Board,” she says.
Paula Fletcher tells CBC’s David Common that renovictions are a growing trend in the Toronto area. 0:40
Seeking certainty, many move out
Marion is still holding on to his basement unit in Montreal, though two-thirds of the other apartments have been vacated, including that of his former neighbour Radina Papukchieva.
“It was eight months of pressure, and it just became like a psychological stress,” Papukchieva says.
“We had mice. Garbage wasn’t getting picked up. They were doing everything to make us feel uncomfortable and unwanted in our own place.”
But Papukchieva and Marion’s former landlord disputes that. Abraham Kellner, the manager of the building, says plumbing fixes alone cost $100,000.
“I can tell you that we did plumbing, electricity, kitchens, toilets, windows, floors,” he says. “I mean, it wasn’t minor at all.”
The company that bought the apartment tried to do the best for all parties and did everything in good faith, Kellner says.
Kellner wouldn’t say how much rent new tenants coming in after the renovations are being charged, but denied it had doubled.
“It depends on the apartment, but after it’s renovated … it’s normal that it’s going to be more,” he says. “But I wouldn’t say double, and in some cases — it’s hard to say, it’s a lot of apartments.”
Radina Papukchieva says she was pressured out of her apartment by her landlord, who then rented it to someone else for nearly double the rent she had been paying. (CBC)
Papukchieva said she, too, is paying more because of the move, going from a monthly cost of $725 to $1,000 just to stay in an increasingly pricey neighbourhood.
“They want to simply do cosmetic changes to the apartments, make them look super nice, keep it like that — they’re not doing anything to the exterior of the building,” Papukchieva says.
Price paid is more than financial
Some tenants pre-empt renovictions by offering to pay more to stay. But others aren’t given the choice.
In Toronto, Ivan Wadgymar resisted an eviction notice — but lost in a tribunal because the new owners converted the building from residential to commercial. It was at the hearings, seeing other tenants in the same position, that he says he realized the impact the rapidly growing number of renovictions is having on the fabric of his city.
“It took me going to those meetings and seeing people cry who are getting evicted as well to make me understand what a home is … how important it is to feel that you have a home. And then get kicked out of it.”
The owner of the company that bought his building says they “approach all projects with the rights and respect of the tenants and the law in mind.”
“We care about our community and we are dedicated to working with our city throughout the process,” says Basem Hanna.
Yanick Marion has refused to leave his basement unit in Montreal, though he says two-thirds of the other apartments around him have been vacated. (CBC)
But Wadgymar feels the neighborhood is changing and is increasingly unaffordable.
He now helps others fight against renovictions, though he’s doing so from a bedroom in his mother’s house, because the small-business operator is no longer able to afford rent in the area he called home for three years.
“I’ve been pretty depressed since this happened,” Wadgymar says. “I haven’t even unpacked my stuff … I’m still absorbing this.”
The building where he used to live is now fenced off, with construction supplies visible through the windows. His name has been removed from the buzzer on the door.
Public protests
With its proximity to the downtown core, Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood has become increasingly desirable. Many of its low-rise apartment buildings are more than 50 years old and are being scooped up by companies with a track record for renovictions, according to Fletcher, the city councillor for the area.
“I always say we cannot build affordable housing as fast as tenants in these types of rental situations are being evicted,” she says.
Toronto Coun. Paula Fletcher says she wants to see changes to the Landlord And Tenant Act to help stop renovictions. (CBC)
When some tenants in Fletcher’s ward got notices to leave recently, she joined them in a protest outside the building. She also wants the Landlord and Tenant Board to demand proof that planned renovations are so extensive, that there is no other option but for a tenant to move out.
“There’s only a few companies that come in and do this, but they seem to have a plan. Get in. Get the building. Give the notices. Renovate. Triple the existing rent,” she says. “It’s a pattern.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
