Housing affordability barrier discussed by homelessness task force

Article content

A lack of housing affordability is limiting investment in Belleville, a local property manager has told the city’s homelessness task force.

Article content

Ishpreet Singh is founder of IPS Property Management, which works with housing providers across the Quinte area to manage residential rental properties. He was among the guest speakers at the June 5 supplemental meeting of Mayor Neil Ellis’ Understanding Homelessness Task Force.

Article content

Recommended Videos

Article content

Singh said his firm manages a variety of buildings, from single-family homes to rooming houses. It now manages 67 units with 300 to 350 tenants in total.

“The main issue is not homelessness. It’s the affordability,” Singh told task force members.

“When it comes to placing the tenants, we see lot of businesses hesitant to invest in this region,” he said. That reluctance comes from an inability to find housing for their staff, he said.

Qualification criteria exclude many tenants, he said. If the rent is, for example, $2,000 per month, the household monthly income may need to be $4,000 to $6,000 before landlords will rent a given unit.

“How many people have that type of income here to support that?” asked Singh. “So that is the gap that needs to be addressed as well.”

Article content

Article content

Some landlords also want to protect their investments, he said, and are leery of the potential for damage or other losses. They would rather have a vacant property than risk problems from not having the right tenants, Singh said.

He said fraudulent rental applications have gone “through the roof,” with people submitting fake forms, false pay stubs, and more.

In March, the Quinte Region Landlords Association formed a provincial alliance to oppose Ontario’s Bill 10, which last year received royal assent. It holds property owners liable for illegal drug activity on their properties.

Association president Robert Gentile said privacy laws prevent landlords from monitoring activity private residences. Landlords don’t have power to police or enforce drug laws, he said.

“These are completely unrealistic duties to thrust upon housing providers,” Gentile said in a news release at the time. “It puts all of us at legal risk, and will only drive up evictions of high-risk tenants.”

Article content

Singh said another issue is Ontario’s Landlord-Tenant Board, which has tens of thousands of outstanding applications, with resolutions taking months.

Given the risks, “All they (landlords) want to do is sell the property here and buy in the U.S. – that’s what I’m hearing – because they have better laws, better systems to address that,” Singh said.

Coun. Garnet Thompson, a member of Hastings County’s joint community and human services committee, said rent subsidies cannot be paid directly to landlords. Thompson said Ontario should allow it. Singh said that was “absolutely” true.

“It would be more secure … and they (landlords) would be more comfortable to renting it out to those specific demographics.”

Current incentives for landlords aren’t sufficient, Singh said. He suggested finding ways to ease the requirements on tenants while helping landlords to feel their investments are secure.

The task force’s final report, including recommendations for further action, is due this month.

Article content

Article content