Tenants of 29-unit Halifax rooming house told to vacate by September

The tenants of a 29-unit rooming house on North Street in Halifax will have to pack their belongings and look for new housing by September after the owners gave notice they're emptying the building.

In April, the tenants were given a letter from the building's owners saying there will be no further lease renewals for current tenants. The rooms go for less than $1,000 per month and many tenants are low-income.

"It's terrifying," said tenant Harris Romkey, a hotel worker who has lived in the building for 26 years. "It's like being told to jump off a ship where there's nowhere to go."

The letter, provided to CBC News by a tenant, encourages residents to speak to their social worker or any support staff to "immediately start looking for options." This comes less than two years after CBC News reported the building's owners attempted to raise rent by 30 per cent for tenants on income assistance.

Dalhousie Legal Aid Service in Halifax has been working with some of the residents. It sent out a media advisory Thursday morning to say the eviction appears to be part of a pattern being used to circumvent the province's temporary rent cap.

Harris Romkey said he hopes to find legal recourse and have the eviction cancelled. (David Laughlin/CBC)

Romkey, who pays $565 a month for his unit, said tenants at the North Street building need some sort of legal protection. He worries he'll never be able to find an apartment that he can afford due to Halifax's housing crisis, and is concerned some residents will end up on the streets.

After the first notice went out, the tenants on periodic leases were given forms called a DR5 — an agreement to end their tenancy for renovations or demolition. The tenants on fixed-term leases were simply told they wouldn't be given a new lease when their current lease expires, which is legal.

This photo shows the size of the building, which extends back from the street. (Dylan Jones/CBC)

Romkey was one of the tenants on a month-to-month periodic lease who received a DR5. He was also given another eviction notice by the landlords that says he must vacate because of "pending major renovations," but Romkey said he doesn't intend to sign anything until seeking further legal advice.

Landlords say they've 'followed every rule'

Property records show 6273 North St. is owned by CB MacDonald Properties Ltd. Nova Scotia's Registry of Joint Stock Companies shows the directors, officers, and recognized agent of CB MacDonald Properties are Adam Conter, Tom Jockel and Dan Jockel.

The three men took possession of the North Street property in December 2021.

CBC News contacted Conter on Wednesday, who sent an emailed statement Thursday, stressing that the owners are following the legal processes laid out in the Residential Tenancies Act.

Conter said they've spent 18 months reaching out to housing organizations and the provincial and municipal government, seeking partnerships to provide support for the tenants at the property and get funding to maintain it.

"We were told that the only way we can get support is to be a charity, and that a charity would only want to support if the building was empty," Conter said.

"While the accusations against a landlord in this challenging time for housing grabs headlines, we've offered to act as partners and work towards a constructive solution for the community as we've successfully proven in some of our other properties."

Tenants being renovicted, says legal worker

Sydnee Blum, a community legal worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid Service in Halifax, is calling the situation a renoviction — the act of evicting tenants to renovate a building and then increasing the rent charged to new tenants.

"Across the province, we see situations where landlords are using renovictions to get around the rent cap. Here we have a landlord who has already been caught trying to skirt the cap," Blum said in the release.

This notice went out to tenants of the building in April, saying everyone must vacate by Sept. 1. (Submitted)

In March 2022, Nova Scotia's ban on renovictions was lifted when the province's state of emergency ended. However, new protections for tenants were added to the Residential Tenancies Act.

The protections include that the tenant must be given at least three months of notice and the landlord must compensate the tenant with between one and three months of rent, depending on the building's size. Additional compensation may be awarded to the tenant if the landlord does not follow the new rules or is found to have acted in bad faith.

Blum said she believes the eviction may not be in good faith, noting there are no active building permits listed for the address on the municipality's website.

She has been going door to door in the building speaking with tenants. She said many didn't know they may be entitled to legal protection, and is concerned some are being offered financial incentives to leave but are entitled to more compensation.

"There's been a lot of confusion in the building about what's been going on and a lot of conflicting messages between what the law says and what's been communicated to them by the landlord," she said in an interview.

Community Services Minister Brendan Maguire said his department will try to help tenants find new places to live, and will examine things like rent supplements to help.

"Some of it may be shared housing with someone they know, some of it may be their own apartment," he said. "But we're going to do everything we can to make sure every one of the individuals have a roof over their head."

Romkey said conditions in the building have been "terrible," citing bugs, mould, and barely functioning bathrooms. Other tenants have told CBC there have been issues getting necessary repairs and pest control in the building.

But many tenants have stayed because they couldn't afford anything else as Halifax's rents continue to climb.

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