With few options, Fredericton tenants protest the end of their leases
CBC
Tenants of a Fredericton apartment building recently under new ownership stood on the street Tuesday waving signs to protest the termination of their leases and to call for better protections for tenants.
People in all 17 units at 91 Main Street will have to leave the building by the end of May, and those who have been there less than five years have to be out by the end of March.
Sue Billings has called the building home for more than 15 years.
"I'm just a basket case – just a basket case. We all are," she said.
Billings isn't sure where she will live come June.
"I found a place. It's $1,240 a month, but that's without any utilities. Two bedroom, can't do it. Not going to happen," she said.
Billings is on a pension but still works to make ends meet.
She pays $750 a month now.
Before the notice that her lease would be terminated, there were two separate notices of rent increases, one of $250 a month and then another $100 on top of that, which would have taken effect in August.
She said her only rent increase in the building before that was $70 last winter.
"It's not been maintained, so maybe they did us a favour in the long run. As long as we can find a place to live, that's the problem."
Nichola Taylor, who has lived in the building for four years, said tenants in the province need help.
"There's no protection whatsoever for tenants, and so that needs to be changed," she said. "And we also need to stop these — they need a cap on the rent — so they need to stop the rental increases. It's so unfair to expect somebody to suddenly pay a huge amount of money on top of what they're already paying."
The tenants say the reason they were given for the termination of their leases was the need for renovations.
A long-serving United Church minister is preparing to leave his pulpit, adding pressure at a time when filling vacancies has become increasingly difficult.
Garrett Hawkins is on the cusp of making it to the big leagues. The pitcher from Biggar, Sask., has been added to the San Diego Padres 40-man roster.
Charlottetown Police and Fire Services are asking residents to avoid areas around Green Street due to a structure fire on Sunday morning.
Despite being born on a Christmas tree farm in Ohio, he wasn't really a fan of the holiday season.
A Hamilton hospital network is taking a closer look at how psychedelics might be useful in medicine.
Most people would prefer to spend the Christmas holiday weekend in warmth and comfort — but a Philadelphia man is going to spend it trudging 120 kilometres in the cold across Windsor-Essex.
Long before the first Calgary Stampede, the city attracted a different kind of cowboy.
After waiting four years to get his son the support the family says he needs to navigate school with learning challenges, a father from London, Ont. is fighting to make equitable healthcare and education a fundamental right.
Waterloo region and Guelph are under two yellow weather alerts warning of freezing rain changing to heavy rainfall Sunday, Environment Canada says.
A survey recently conducted on Prince Edward Island turned up a type of freshwater snail that experts say has never before been identified in the Maritimes.
A downtown Toronto long-term care home is rebuilding with a new design that considers lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, going beyond the province’s standards — but some say those standards are out of date.
It’s another wet and stormy day for much of Newfoundland and Labrador.
It’s been years since the tiny but aggressive European green crab made its way over to the Magdalen Islands, and some researchers in Quebec are warning it could be headed for the Gaspé next.