RESEARCH CLUSTER 1
Co-Leads: Julie Mah (UofT) and Jeremy Wildeman (Canadian Centre for Housing Rights)
What can tenants do to counter increasing rental costs? How are formal and informal mechanisms for rental evictions enacted? How is housing pressure increasing for vulnerable populations, especially after COVID-19, including those in encampments, youth, racialized persons, 2SLGBTQIA+ persons, lone parents, disabled persons, and people with mental health needs? This cluster has two core pan-Canadian multi-year projects:
Research Projects that are part of Research Cluster 1:
Project 1A: Evictions Research Lab
Research Cluster (RC) 1: Housing Precarity
Lead: Julie Mah (UofT)
This project will link together a number of disparate datasets, and use this to answer questions about the state of evictions, encampments, and housing precarity. These data include census demographics, landlord-tenant tribunal rulings, sheriff enforcement, rents, above-guideline increases, building permit renovation applications, apartment building ownership, sales transactions. We will analyze the resulting data statistically, using multi-variate regression analysis and multi-level modelling, to reveal which kinds of landlords (e.g., financialized vs. more traditional) and which kinds of housing (in which geographies within which Canadian cities) are experiencing the most rapid rates of evictions, renovictions, and rent increases, and the extent to which Indigenous and racialized tenants are overrepresented. This project will map how precarity is experienced, including how and where encampments have grown. We will also conduct a national comparative qualitative study of eviction processes and experiences, including analyses of landlord- tenant legislation and tribunal hearings, anti-renoviction and anti-demoviction policies, and the effects of legal aid, tenant duty counsel, community legal workers, and tenant organizers, to identify who is most affected by eviction and which policies and practices are most effective at preventing eviction. We will produce a set of policy reports and community toolkits on how to address eviction and precarity, with the goal of shifting policy debates and empower community organizations seeking to protect tenants.
Project 1B: Tenants’ Rights Mapping Project and Network
This project will build a Canada-wide scholarly research network connecting national and local tenants’ groups that will co-produce research for use by tenants. We will create a searchable, transparent, national database linking apartment records with sales transactions drawing from land registry filings, as well as rent levels, evictions data from the Evictions Lab, and Census demographics. We will statistically analyze, using multi-variate methods, the changing composition of the housing stock (social housing vs. corporate vs. financialized landlords), housing types (multi-residential, student housing, seniors’ housing), investment strategies, and landlord-tenant legislation and tenant tribunal processes (digital streamlined eviction hearings) over the last two decades. We will investigate the rise of property technology (‘proptech’) companies in Canada, specifically the ways these are being used by landlords for tenant screening, tracking, and property management, and we will research human rights and privacy concerns stemming from this via statistical analysis of landlord-tenant disputes and legal case studies. In addition to publishing research and policy reports from this project, we will host research workshops across the country to bring tenants together to discuss tenant unions, help tenant organizers to share strategies and research needs, and discuss best practices and strategies learned from international examples.