Halifax tenants in 'precarious housing situations' band together to fight renovictions

Late last year, multiple tenants in small apartment buildings around Halifax got similar letters from their new landlord, stating their leases would soon be terminated. But no reasons were given. 

This didn't sit right with Amanda Rose, who has been renting her one-bedroom apartment in the city's north end for almost six years. 

"It seemed targeted," Rose said in a recent interview at her Cunard Street apartment. "It seemed like it was targeted toward the tenants who had been here the longest and were paying the lowest rent amount."

Rose, who works as a funding co-ordinator in the social services sector, knew four people in her eight-unit building had received the letter.

When she knocked on some doors, she found tenants in four other buildings recently purchased by the same landlord, PreCor Property Management, were facing eviction attempts as well.

Rose said they started communicating in an email chain and offering information and support to others in "precarious housing situations."

Some contested the legality of letters, which were withdrawn by the landlord. Then came renoviction attempts for Rose and others.

Six months later, Rose is still living in her unit, fighting her renoviction. A residential tenancy officer ruled in her favour in May, saying the renoviction did not appear to be in good faith.

But her landlord appealed the decision to small claims court. A new hearing will occur in the coming months. 

"Fighting these renovictions, it's not only something that I'm doing because it's in my best interest and it allows me to have that safe, stable, secure housing, but it also is to protect the right to housing for all of my neighbours, too," she said. 

Sydnee Blum, a community legal worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid Service in Halifax, said she's representing one of the tenants in the appeal. Blum estimates up to 24 tenants of PreCor Property Management are impacted. 

"When it's happening to multiple buildings at a time, this is, to us, part of a systematized effort to evict long-term tenants, do cosmetic upgrades on a building and then rent them for higher rents," Blum said.

"And this is what we see in the classic renoviction, or flipping of apartment buildings."

Nova Scotia's Registry of Joint Stocks shows the director, president, and secretary of PreCor Property Management is Mitchell Hollohan, whose business address is listed in Halifax.