As tenants fail to pay rent, damage units, or both, a local landlord is disheartened with a lack of support from social services to cover damages caused by his tenants.
Adam Kitchener, who owns around a dozen rental units in the Simcoe County area, said he earmarks 25-35 per cent of his units to vulnerable people seeking housing through social service agencies, such as Empower Simcoe, among numerous others.
While he does not rent units at typical affordable housing thresholds, Kitchener said he works with social service agencies “to try to build the rents around (their) subsidies and whatever they can actually, genuinely afford.”
Offering rentals to people in vulnerable situations is something Kitchener began nearly a decade ago, when he housed dozens of refugees in Hamilton during the Syrian refugee crisis.
While refugees have been “absolutely amazing, fantastic tenants,” he said the situation is different in Simcoe County, and told OrilliaMatters about a recent experience he had with a tenant sourced through Empower Simcoe.
“We had a tenant that stopped paying rent. It was a couple, and the couple moved in, and the couple broke up, so the gentleman moved out, and the lady stayed,” Kitchener said. “As soon as the gentleman left, they stopped paying rent.
“I went through the regular legal process, and after accruing about $8,000 worth of debt, the tenant was evicted.”
Kitchener said the tenants also caused around $10,000 worth of damages, leaving him in the negative for the tenancy, and damage costs were not covered by Empower Simcoe — which has access to a landlord damage fund that covers expenses for certain damages.
“Once the lady was evicted, they said, ‘Well, we can't pay for the repairs, because this is only to maintain the tenancy. If you had kept her we would have fixed the unit,’” Kitchener recalled.
“I wouldn't need to fix the unit had she not moved out and had been paying her rent, so therein lies the problem: she's left me with $8,000 worth of rent that is unrecoverable and $10,000 worth of damages.”
The situation with these tenants is a common experience for Kitchener, who said he has around a 50 per cent success rate with tenants sourced through social service agencies, with the others either failing to pay rent, damaging units, or both.
He said he got involved with offering housing to vulnerable people – whether refugees, or those experiencing homelessness – to play a small part in addressing the housing crisis, but he has grown frustrated with what he views as a lack of support from social services agencies.
“When you come to housing, individuals who come through these types of channels, it's not just simply enough to provide them with housing and then walk away,” he said. “We need to have these wraparound services. There has to be the supports in place.”
That support, he said, also needs to extend to landlords providing units.
“When we do have people who are willing to put their neck on the line, we need to also provide assurances for the landlord,” he said.
Whether it’s support regarding tenants failing to pay rent, causing damage, or meeting the need for social supports, Kitchener said he hopes the government will “widen the powers of these agencies to provide real supports.”
“If you're going to wait for public housing to get built, it's going to be another 40 years, so we need to rely on the private sector, but if the private sector can't rely on the public services, then we're just at war with each other and it's never going to solve itself. Meanwhile, homeless shelters will fill up.”
Empower Simcoe works to connect people with various supports, from food, to mental health, to employment, and it works with landlords like Kitchener to help get people housed, as well.
When it comes to tenants who cause damage, officials told OrilliaMatters their damages fund can cover cases where tenants have been evicted, but they said these damages need to meet certain criteria.
"If a tenant is evicted, that's paid for. If there's serious damage to the property, then the landlord can claim for that damage,” said CEO Claudine Cousins. “We know how important it is to build those relationships.
“We're not going to say to the landlord, ‘Oh, I'm so sorry, but you cannot claim those things because the person is gone,’ but they have to claim what's within the parameters.”
The landlord damage fund covers a variety of eligible damages, such as the need for “extreme” cleaning services arising from hoarding, or “significant” damage like broken windows, demolished walls or ceilings, damage to appliances exceeding wear and tear, and more.
The fund does not cover damages caused by normal wear and tear on the property.
“One of the things that (Kitchener) has … has submitted receipts for (and) asked the fund to cover, is things such as painting … which is something that a landlord, when they're turning over their space, cleaning and painting is something that they're responsible for,” Cousins said.
“Those types of things … the landlord damage fund doesn't cover things like that, and we make sure that our landlords are aware of that going into the relationship that we build with them.”
Normal wear and tear on walls, floors, doors, small holes, paint damage, and regular maintenance costs are not covered by the damage fund, among other damages.
Like Kitchener, however, Cousins highlighted the importance of the public and private sector working together to get people housed — particularly vulnerable individuals.
“We value the relationships we have with our landlords. We know how hard it is to build those relationships,” she said. “The individuals we have are usually looked down on by landlords, right? There are individuals who have issues not only with homelessness, but issues with other things, (such as) substance abuse, or they have mental health issues.”
With average rent for a one-bedroom apartment exceeding $1,500 per month, well beyond the reach of those on ODSP or Ontario Works, Cousins said it’s “critical” for the private sector to provide or build units that are affordable.
“We know that here in Simcoe County, there were 441 homeless people in 2022 … and that number is only going to increase when the numbers come out this year,” she said. “It's so critical for the private sector and the government to come together, to come up with some solutions and stop talking about the issue and really put the action in place so that we can start housing people.”
