'It got bad': Mother, daughter say fight to address health hazards in subsidized unit ended with rent increase

A disabled mother and daughter from Fredericton say they were on the verge of getting long-overdue repairs to their subsidized apartment when their landlord withdrew from New Brunswick’s rent subsidy program — a decision that nearly left them homeless.

Lisa Young, 32, and her mother Sandy White, 59, now want the laws changed to prevent the same thing from happening to someone else.

“These units are not getting the care they need and vulnerable people are stuck in them because they have nowhere else to go,” said Young. 

There is no legislation under the Residential Tenancies Act preventing landlords from opting their units out of the province’s subsidy program at any point.

Julia Woodhall-Melnik, a social sciences professor at the University of New Brunswick with a focus on housing issues, said landlords often opt out of the N.B. Housing program to raise rent prices, but Young's case highlights an easy out for landlords to avoid making improvements.

"There’s no red flag marker on this landlord that says ‘don’t let him rent it again until he fixes it,’ so this problem is just going to be passed on to another tenant,” said Woodhall-Melnik.

She believes private landlords should have fixed-length subsidy agreements and shouldn’t be able to unilaterally pull out early. 

Soon after moving into their subsidized apartment in 2021, Young and her mother noticed black mould, the smell of smoke, smoke residue on the walls and kitchen cabinets, and a broken air vent.

They filed a complaint with the province and requested they be moved to a new unit. Two years later, nothing changed. 

Then in July, after a Public Health inspector validated Young and her mother’s concerns, the Tenant and Landlord Relations Office (TLRO) stepped in and asked the landlord to make repairs. 

Weeks later, Young received a letter from the landlord stating her unit would be removed from the subsidy program on Oct. 31. That meant their rent would increase from $641 to $1,480 a month.

Young said that price tag was simply more than they could afford. So, they notified the landlord they would be moving out and began their search for a new place. 

But finding a new place meant an end to the four-year-long battle to see the landlord improve conditions. According to an email from the TLRO, the investigation into Young's case ended when she moved out of the apartment. 

The landlord did not respond to a CBC News interview request.