City landlord shuts door on welfare tenants
Northern Property stopped renting apartments to people on income assistance in December due to $250,000 in lost revenue
Cody Punter
Northern News Services
Published Friday, May 9, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
People on income support in Yellowknife have been barred from renting apartments from the city's largest residential landlord ever since it implemented a policy to prevent the company from losing money this past December.
Northern Property, which owns approximately 75 per cent of the residential rental properties in Yellowknife, stopped accepting tenants on income support after it reportedly lost $250,000 in revenue due to unpaid rent in 2013, according to Lizaine Wheeler, vice-president of residential operations for the company.
"A high number of our arrears are from income support," said Wheeler.
Wheeler was unable to say what percentage of the company's losses could be attributed to people receiving government assistance, but pointed out that of the seven people who were behind on their rent for the month of April, six depended on government handouts.
"We've always taken them without any issue - well, with issues on our side, but we just accepted it. But when we ran the numbers ... we just can't keep losing that money."
Although existing tenants have been allowed to stay so long as they pay their rent, Northern Property will not be accepting new applicants unless the GNWT can provide some form of assurance that tenants will not default on their payments.
When asked what kinds of guarantees she is looking for, Wheeler said she met with the GNWT and suggested that they guarantee the rent of each person on income assistance for up to a month in the event they don't pay up, after which Northern Property would assume responsibility for accumulating outstanding rent.
However, Jolene Saturnino, director of income assistance with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, who has been discussing the issue with Wheeler on behalf of the government, said Northern Property has indicated that they want the entire term of a tenant's rent to be guaranteed.
According to Saturnino, the government helped pay the rent of 320 families at Northern Property-owned apartments between 2013 and 2014, with each receiving assistance for an average of eight months.
Seventy-five per cent of income assistance clients have their funding reviewed on a monthly basis, while the other 25 per cent are reviewed annually, she said.
As such, the government would be unable to guarantee the rent for the majority of its clients, whether it was for a month or for a year.
"When it comes to guaranteeing payment of income assistance funds, we are publicly funded and we need to adhere to our legislation while ensuring that we're effectively advocating four our clients," she said.
Saturnino added that once an individual stops receiving income support, the government is no longer responsible for their financial stability.
"When the debt is incurred, if they are not clients of income assistance, then they're not clients," she said.
Under Northern Property's current policies, tenants who default on their rent after one month are given 10 days to pay the arrears. If they are not able to come up with the money in that amount of time, they are then given an eviction notice.
However, Wheeler said most tenants refuse to leave even after receiving the notice. At that point, the case is referred to independent arbitration by the rental board, which often takes between four and six weeks to complete.
Chuck Wyman, property manager for YKD Property Management Ltd., which rents out apartments at 15 buildings across Yellowknife, said the company has a total of three tenants on income support, but that it has not had any problems with them paying their rent.
Nonetheless, Wyman said he sympathizes with Northern Property's situation.
"The problem with income support is if somebody gets cut off, income support will not call me. So if one of these three people I have gets cut off for next month ... it could be two or three months before you go through the rental board and get a judgment," he said.
Saturnino explained that in order to be eligible for support, clients must first put their name on the waiting list for public housing. At the moment though, there is currently not enough housing to meet the demands.
"There's always a waiting list in Yellowknife," she said.
Lydia Bardak, executive director for the John Howard Society, has met with Saturnino to discuss the impacts of Northern Property's policy along with other members of Yellowknife's Homelessness Coalition. Bardak said she is worried that people on income assistance will end up on the streets.
"I understand that we need profitable businesses, but we also need to put a roof over people's heads," she said.
Bardak added Northern Property's policy is putting a strain on the city's transitional homes, which are intended as a short-term housing option for people unable to afford market housing.
"They've had some real struggles," said Bardak.
"In the past, they were always able to move people into market rentals, but now they're stuck.
"Their waiting list continues to grow while they can't continue to move people."
Saturnino said income assistance case officers have been working with existing clients to help put them into market housing that is not owned by Northern Property. She said the GNWT will continue to try and work with Northern Property to try and come up with an effective policy.
