Defending Against Demovictions w/Bank Block Tenants
The wealthy bought up the neighbourhood like their own personal game of Monopoly. Now they want to tear down some of the only affordable units in Ottawa - places where some of called home for 40 years.
Demovictions, like renovictions are eating away at the bottom of the housing market, targeting low cost rentals and turning them into places most people can not afford. Even with new renoviction bylaws in place, there is seemingly no help coming from City Hall for the tenants on Bank Street.
We interview Ben Emond from Bank Street Tenants and ask about their beginnings; how they came together after all receiving N13s (eviction notices). We hear about the resistance they've faced from their landlord, the rubberstamping approvals process at City Hall and the tactics the these tenants are using to push back against it all.
All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support us: Patreon
Resources:
Transcript
Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints
Speaker:of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining
Speaker:power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,
Speaker:we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle
Speaker:capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know
Speaker:we need. Welcome to Blueprints. Can you introduce yourself, Ben? Absolutely. Hi, my name is Ben
Speaker:Imond. I'm a tenant in downtown Ottawa facing demo eviction. You're not on your own, though,
Speaker:Ben. You're part of a collective, thankfully, fighting this eviction. Yes, we formed a tenants
Speaker:association called Bank Block Tenants, because we're along Bank Street in Ottawa, if you know
Speaker:Ottawa. Shortly after hearing that we were going to be our tendencies were going to be terminated,
Speaker:at least according to what the landlord wants. We'll see. Well, that is the battle. And this
Speaker:isn't gonna be the first time the audience has heard of a rent eviction, or in this case,
Speaker:it's a proposed demoviction. You folks, I imagine all en masse were served with N13s? Yes. Is
Speaker:that what prompted? you folks organizing together or had you already come together as a collective
Speaker:with these wonderful landlords that you have? That was the prompting. It was quite a beautiful
Speaker:coming together of... quite a diverse range of people, not a huge group, about 20 of us
Speaker:or so, but diverse in age and cultural, socioeconomic background. So yeah, that really was the prompting.
Speaker:I think about a month or so, a month to two months after being served those forms, we began
Speaker:meeting and talking informally and then more formally shortly thereafter. Did that kind
Speaker:of happen organically? You know, you're all served with the same notice. same shared experience
Speaker:you meet on the street in the elevator in these maybe third spaces around where you live and
Speaker:you just started talking about it griping you know with each other grieving you know or you
Speaker:know getting angry together or did someone take the onus there and say we have to organize
Speaker:with each other? I think I think a bit of both I think a couple a few of us A few of my neighbors
Speaker:are progressive, leftist leaning, and have some, you know, one or two of them have some union
Speaker:experience or some activist experience. And I think that was an extra accelerator, I guess
Speaker:you could say to us forming as a group. But kind of at the same time, I remember we were
Speaker:we were, as we know each other, in my building there was only, well, there were seven units
Speaker:at the time. There's six units now, and only about, what, 10 to 12 of us. And we know each
Speaker:other, we're friends. And so it was that discussion that we kept having. I think we slowly realized
Speaker:that... working collectively would be a huge advantage if we wanted to stay, if we wanted
Speaker:to fight this. So it really was a realization through those discussions as you're talking
Speaker:about on the street, in the hallway, elevator, whatever, and really probably a bit of background
Speaker:on the part of some of us and an ideological alignment for sure among several of us. Is
Speaker:that common still or do you find that the event has drawn together, like you said, a more diverse
Speaker:group of people? Is that the case when we're talking political ideology as well? Are we
Speaker:crossing the floor? Yeah, I would say there has been some... There has been some crossing
Speaker:of the floor. There some of the, I'm just going to put it bluntly. Some of the tenants seem
Speaker:like they're more focused towards getting a buyout and getting just a good amount of cash
Speaker:from this situation. And I'm trying to be careful not to be overly judgmental. Even though I
Speaker:am, because for me, the money, any amount of money that we get, we'd still be losing 16
Speaker:at this rate affordable homes. And that's the problem in my mind. It's not about the money.
Speaker:The money is just another way of capitalism exerting its ugly face, right? All it knows
Speaker:is to use money as a means for accomplishing something. So I understand that it would be
Speaker:some compensation for people, but I don't look at it like that. However, in my sort of more
Speaker:measured reflective moments, I realized that there might be an individual who was already
Speaker:not wanting to stay forever here, you know? And it was a transitional time in their lives.
Speaker:And for them, maybe it makes sense individually to. get some amount of cash as compensation
Speaker:for losing their home. It's just I keep going in circles around it because it's not about
Speaker:us as individuals, because if these homes are kept, then future generations could have these
Speaker:affordable homes. Yeah. Because when you say we will lose affordable units, you mean collectively,
Speaker:like you will Ben lose access to your affordable unit, but the City of Ottawa has a hole and
Speaker:we know that we are starved for actually affordable units. So when we're talking about the tenants,
Speaker:one of the articles I've read about your group is there's a lot of people. that rely on government
Speaker:assistance in these units. And we know that those rates are so, so low that finding housing
Speaker:at all, even with financial compensation, would be next to impossible for some of the tenants
Speaker:there. Absolutely. I mean, you could just do the calculation, depending on what metric you
Speaker:use, whatever the average rent is in Ottawa, if you can even capture that accurately. But
Speaker:it would be... That would have to be a lot of money to compensate for our rents, which I
Speaker:think our average rent might be $650 to $700 among all our 16 units. That's a guess, but
Speaker:it's pretty close. So the average apartment would be double, more like triple that, I think,
Speaker:in Ottawa. It depends, but double to triple that. And so, I mean, it would have to be a
Speaker:heck of a lot of money to compensate a person for that. I'm going to draw comparisons to
Speaker:Heron Gate because the more I read about your folks, it's the same thing here. It's not also
Speaker:the cost, but the size and type of units that will be replaced. Like we're finding not only
Speaker:are we gentrifying through the rates that we're going to charge people to live there, right?
Speaker:Pushing people out of their communities, but there are different types of units, right?
Speaker:Smaller units, less family friendly units. And they end up, you know, just. doubling their
Speaker:money over and over. It's incessant greed, but then those are forever lost to the collective
Speaker:as well, right? And in that community, specifically, this is a trend of a block of buildings. Your
Speaker:landlord owns a very large stretch of the area that you're in. So they clearly have plans.
Speaker:and have had plans, right? It's been a set of purchases to work towards having this large
Speaker:swath so they need to displace people. Can you describe the area that we're talking about
Speaker:in Ottawa for folks that don't live there and what this kind of change will be like? Yeah,
Speaker:we're very close to the parliament buildings on Bank Street, which is one of the main streets
Speaker:in downtown Ottawa. When I say very close, I mean, you can see... about six blocks down
Speaker:from Parliament. So it's absolute dead center, downtown Ottawa, right sort of at the edge
Speaker:of the business district, almost part of it, but not quite, kind of where it starts becoming.
Speaker:becoming a mix of commercial and residential. This area has seen a lot of empty stores, even
Speaker:right up towards the Parliament buildings along Bank. There's quite a few vacancies as well.
Speaker:Is that because they've been purchased by investors or are we just talking about a struggling area
Speaker:of the city economically speaking? Yeah, it's interesting. I think... So in our case, we
Speaker:know exactly what's happening. The landlord just wants everybody to leave so they can make
Speaker:a ton of money. The lot on the other block just south of us has been vacant for 15 years. So
Speaker:I think it's, what is that called? Real estate speculation in that case. They're just waiting
Speaker:for the land to be its highest value. The other cases, I've seen some businesses come and go
Speaker:in some of the other ones. So perhaps, perhaps in some of the cases, the lack of office workers
Speaker:down, government workers downtown has impacted their ability to stay afloat. So I think it's
Speaker:really kind of a mix of cases, but it seems pretty clear, at least right where we are in
Speaker:our immediate block for sure. And the one beside us and the one across from us, it just seems
Speaker:like it's this, whatever, well, gentrification. plan on the part of the landlords. So, and
Speaker:by the way, also this neighborhood has become rougher and rougher for lack of a more precise
Speaker:term. Recently in the Byward Market, they've increased police presence and we've seen more
Speaker:homeless people come to Centertown, which is where we are by parliament. And so there's
Speaker:even more people having mental health issues living on the street, doing drugs openly.
Speaker:it's getting more violent and it's uh so it's a difficult time and place to be and we despite
Speaker:all of that we do have a community i think one of the things i wrote in one of the articles
Speaker:i posted is that there are people here who support each other and are there for each
Speaker:and throughout the convoy. We were here sharing stories of being harassed for wearing a mask.
Speaker:And that type of building that you do as a community is so lacking in our individualistically oriented
Speaker:capitalist society, in my opinion, that it's so welcome and needed. So nobody, nobody talks
Speaker:about at least... for the city, certainly not our landlords, the impact on those intangible
Speaker:connections that we make as human beings and that are so vital for our mental health, for
Speaker:our continued feelings of hope. In COVID when I was living alone, as I couldn't go out, I
Speaker:mean, you know, I couldn't go to see anybody. You mean like during the lockdown? During the
Speaker:lockdown part of COVID, sorry, yeah. I mean, knowing that there are people, right, it's
Speaker:a small building, but just the other units in here that care if you have a problem. I'm not
Speaker:saying people in other places don't care, but it takes a while to establish that. Because
Speaker:you're saying some tenants there have lived there over 40 years. Yeah, on the other building
Speaker:at the other end of this block that's due to be demolished. There's some people who have
Speaker:been there, yeah, since like the late 70s, early 80s. There's an older Vietnamese couple that
Speaker:really has challenges speaking English that raised their daughter there. And that's what
Speaker:we were coming close to talking about. Several of the people will be in danger of homelessness.
Speaker:I think there's just no question. They're on ODSP or they're on fixed income. They're poor.
Speaker:I mean, I don't understand how we can have a society. Maybe I'm getting ahead of the questions,
Speaker:but it doesn't value what I just talked about, community and people. It boggles my mind. It
Speaker:really does. I think people relate to it when they think of homeowners and they really do
Speaker:sometimes look at the tenant class as a transient class, that it doesn't have roots in a community.
Speaker:We treat encampments this way as well, as though we can just put them anywhere because they
Speaker:don't have a community. We'll put you in a shelter here, we'll put you in a shelter over there.
Speaker:And those are the same assumptions that they haven't built a community that... you rely
Speaker:on for survival. Maybe not the most obvious things like paying the bills, but you mentioned
Speaker:mental health and hope and community is definitely a huge part of that. So I think that's overlooked
Speaker:when you're talking about renters because the turnover might be different or the way people
Speaker:see the relation to property. But If you lived somewhere for 40 years, you would probably
Speaker:almost, except for the fact you pay rent, forget that you don't own it. It is your home just
Speaker:as though your house that you owned would be your home. There would be knowing no other
Speaker:way. And that would be so traumatizing to then have no... control or seemingly no control
Speaker:over someone removing you from that home and that community. So gladly you folks took it
Speaker:upon yourself to not just roll over, you know, to fight back. Can you tell me what the landlord's
Speaker:reaction has been like? And like, how did you know when they knew you were all getting together
Speaker:and perhaps they weren't going to deal with Ben on his own and the Vietnamese family on
Speaker:their own that they perhaps had a bigger battle brewing. Their response was utter disregard
Speaker:for our rights, an unbelievable lack of imaginative thinking for trying to put themselves in our
Speaker:shoes. Deceitful language. When they first gave us the N13 forms, a letter accompanied those
Speaker:forms saying that they would be willing to give us as tenants up to 12 months rent of our current
Speaker:rent as compensation for leaving. But they also said in that same letter that we would all
Speaker:have to agree that in other words, if one of us, if it wasn't a unanimous agreement, then
Speaker:we... would not possibly would not could not get the compensation. They never talked to
Speaker:us when they bought the building in the fall of 2022. There was never an inspection for
Speaker:fire safety, nothing. So complete disregard for us as human beings. I can't stress that
Speaker:enough. It's like they never saw you. Absolutely. Right. They bought that building with a very
Speaker:specific purpose in mind. Yes. And it had nothing to do with you folks. And I think they just
Speaker:tried to remove you from the equation, even in their minds and clearly in their application
Speaker:to the city. Right. Like is this. as though it was any other building. Like it was the
Speaker:empty lot across from you, right? It might as well have been from the care that they took
Speaker:to figuring out what would happen with the people that had lived there for 40 fucking years.
Speaker:Well, that's very well put. And to answer your question about when they knew, when they knew
Speaker:that we were organizing, they might've known before this, but for sure in May of this year,
Speaker:May, 2024, when their property manager. came to do an inspection of our units. He didn't
Speaker:give us 24 hours notice, which according to the Residential Tenancies Act, the landlord
Speaker:is required. So when he came to our building, many of us were there saying, you didn't give
Speaker:us 24 hours notice, we don't consent to this. And we told him, you have to deal with us as
Speaker:a collective. I believe. Now that could have been the second thing. The first thing could
Speaker:have been when a few of us, I wasn't there, but a few of us walked down to their office
Speaker:with just like a 15 minute walk from here and read an open letter that we wanted to meet
Speaker:with them and deal with them collectively. I can't remember the exact timing, but those
Speaker:two things were us telling them that we will only deal with them collectively because their
Speaker:strategy, their CEO, Tamer Abaza, have no problem saying, his name all day, is known to operate
Speaker:in this way. In other developments, Manor Park and Nepean, he would only meet with his tenants
Speaker:individually. So, it's nothing new for them. We've we've seen that tactic, right? Divide
Speaker:and conquer. I love how they presented themselves in a, you know, landlords do this all the time,
Speaker:try to get away with not giving notice for inspections and whatnot. But you're right, like they normally
Speaker:have to deal with that on a one on one. You can maybe chew them out and threaten to go
Speaker:to the landlord tenant board or whatever. But you're like, that's on you. But to then be
Speaker:faced with a bunch of tenants who now all of a sudden are working. together as one, I imagine
Speaker:it caused a few meetings to be held, right? It's not going to have to, they're not gonna
Speaker:be able to get away. I guess your goal is to not let them get away with this same approach.
Speaker:Absolutely. So if they won't meet with you, what do you do then? What are you folks doing
Speaker:to amp up the pressure then? Yeah, well, and this is the battle. It's whatever public shaming,
Speaker:embarrassment that we can possibly do. And we have done quite a bit so far. I have heard,
Speaker:we have heard that the landlords, CEO, the COO do not like having their faces on posters.
Speaker:I'll include them in the cover art for the episode. Please do. So a lot of posters have gone up
Speaker:with their faces on them. not just in the neighborhood, not just on the building, but in like where
Speaker:they live. I was gonna say, you know where they live. I've seen it referenced in one of the
Speaker:articles in a mansion somewhere. Yeah, exactly. And they also, there's so many details to this
Speaker:story that blow your mind. One is there's a cardiologist who's an investor in this, who
Speaker:has been an investor with them for years. So his as a doctor taking the Hippocratic oath
Speaker:to cause no harm. I mean, this guy was involved in Sandy Hill, the residential neighborhood
Speaker:university area of Ottawa, where the University of Ottawa is. And the same thing, they would
Speaker:have renovations, smart living properties. Tamera Baz's company would buy properties. renovate
Speaker:them, hike up the rents for students. And this is their modus operandi. And so the cardiologist,
Speaker:Binny Kuriyakose, we put an excellent picture of him with his shirt off on a yacht posing
Speaker:with like five or six girls in bikinis, which is quite indicative of his character. I love
Speaker:that it's not just the landlords, which are usually like these incorporated numbers. Sometimes
Speaker:they're faceless, but you've found a face. But they're investors as well because we've talked
Speaker:to some tenant groups who are organizing against really big companies, real estate investment
Speaker:firms. Some of these folks are half-owned by your teacher's pension fund. But there's work
Speaker:being done there to divest from these groups because they're as harmful as the other entities
Speaker:that we try to encourage people to divest from, to be honest. But the fact that you're kind
Speaker:of naming and shaming their investors in such a sensational kind of way is, it's warming
Speaker:my heart, honestly, because you folks were left with very few tactics at hand. Now there is
Speaker:an application at the city. What was it? 2400 pages. Does it really even mention the tenants?
Speaker:It's a plan to gentrify the area. And is that still before the planning committee or whatnot?
Speaker:Like, do you folks have the capacity to fight that part? This is the fascinating part of
Speaker:the whole process. I say fascinating because it brings politics into it. So... Yeah, the
Speaker:Smart Living has submitted their third proposal. I guess they keep modifying. They go back and
Speaker:forth with the city planning department and they change this or that technical aspects
Speaker:of the development application. Are they touching the relocation plan or just like the size of
Speaker:the curbs that they're going to build? It's more of that. It's more very technical stuff.
Speaker:So they have a third application that they submitted. I think it was September 21st or something.
Speaker:So, I mean, right now. We're all waiting for whenever this development application is going
Speaker:to be tabled, whatever the term is, before the Planning and Housing Committee. Nobody knows
Speaker:when we're in contact with the councillors that we know, whatever people we can get in touch
Speaker:with. Our best guest, the chair of the Planning and Housing Committee, who we had a meeting
Speaker:with, Jeff Lieber, said that it could be tabled in the fall, late fall, like early winter,
Speaker:November, December, but nobody really knows. Will they take your input? The short answer
Speaker:is no. No, I mean, and if you ask Jeff Leiper as the chair of the committee, Planning and
Speaker:Housing Committee, he would say no. In the sense that the 10 city councillors who vote, who
Speaker:are on this committee who vote, Jeff Leiper explains that they are really just looking
Speaker:at the planning aspect of this application and not its... impact on affordable housing. I
Speaker:mean, I'm paraphrasing a bit, but not much. We can speak at the Planning and Housing Committee
Speaker:meeting. If we can speak, I think each individual can speak five minutes. I don't know if there's
Speaker:a limit to how many people can speak, but we can't speak repetitive things. The chair can
Speaker:rule us out of order, whatever. Those are details. But it really would just be for media purposes.
Speaker:that we would be speaking. Because if you ask, I mean, Jeff Lieber, and we did, are the councillors
Speaker:gonna vote against this proposal? And the answer is no. Ariel Troster, our councillor in our
Speaker:ward, will vote against this, that's what she said, which is great. But nobody else will,
Speaker:according to Jeff Lieber. I mean, I don't know who else I'm supposed to ask who can predict
Speaker:the future. But... We have had no help from the city. I mean, I don't know what else to
Speaker:say. I don't understand. They explained that it's just really, as long as the development
Speaker:application is in line with the city's official plan, taking into requirements for intensification,
Speaker:density, the height is not too high, it's like a nine story building. Yeah, no, no. Details
Speaker:you could care less about, but it goes in trend with Ottawa and... I will link folks to the
Speaker:episode that we did with Andrew Crosby, who wrote about Herringgate neighborhood and how
Speaker:really it's the developer working with the city. It's the city's vision as well to gentrify
Speaker:these areas. And so when you say the city's plan, not only like their bureaucratic plans
Speaker:and requirements, but actually the city council or the majority of the city councils. vision
Speaker:of what they think Ottawa needs. Yeah. And we've also talked at length the amount of money that
Speaker:developers and the like pay to politicians during campaign times. And not to mention when, let's
Speaker:say, smart living. This will be ironic. They'll build what they'll build, maybe, you know,
Speaker:and there'll be 15 affordable units. They won't be affordable. But. a mayor will likely get
Speaker:a photo op boasting about these affordable units that were created seemingly out of thin air.
Speaker:And we see a lot of that even in Toronto, but no one is talking enough about the loss of
Speaker:affordable units through this manner. You not to minimize what's happening to you, but you
Speaker:are not the first group of tenants. to experience this. Like this is being repeated in municipalities
Speaker:across the country right now. And all of it impacts us. Like let's say you're not even
Speaker:in affordable units. Let's say you don't even know where the bank block is. Surely you understand
Speaker:what happens when you take away unit after unit that is under a thousand dollars rent, which
Speaker:is like unheard of in urban centers for the most part. So. you're just removing that, the
Speaker:median rent obviously goes up. Those are never, ever, ever replaced at that level. And it's
Speaker:not by chance that they're like, oh, this stretch of street would be good. People, developers,
Speaker:real estate speculators are targeting the lowest income housing. Right. They're starting and
Speaker:just stripping the bottom out. from underneath us and then trying to replace it, but they're
Speaker:not, with what is technically an affordable unit, which is like a certain percentage of
Speaker:the average pay of which is nobody is getting. And so, yeah. Have you teamed up with other
Speaker:tenants that not just maybe that are facing smart living as an opponent, but in the city
Speaker:of Ottawa? Yeah. I mean, I would say, yes. We began that process by. One of our regular activities
Speaker:as a tenant group, one we've organized with the People's Assembly, which is a group of
Speaker:local individuals who work and are active in this area trying to lobby and organize and
Speaker:promote affordable housing among some other. I think they have some other causes that they
Speaker:are in allegiance with. But also through our door knocking that we do as a regular activity,
Speaker:we go to similar buildings in our neighborhood that look like around the same vintage or similar.
Speaker:And we talk to the neighbors and we've talked to a lot of people over the past, let's say,
Speaker:it's been at least 10 months, I think, eight to 10 months. And so we've gotten names and
Speaker:numbers. many, many conversations with people and through talking with them we do know that
Speaker:They are, some of them are facing similar issues. Yeah, there's one building in our tenant meeting
Speaker:two times ago, two weeks ago, a tenant came and they're worried about the same thing, about
Speaker:their building being sold. I don't know all the details, but she came to our meeting as
Speaker:a result of her worries for a similar type of issue. And I know the reporter, the journalism
Speaker:student that I just talked with, her building, and she lives close by, was just bought by
Speaker:Sleepwell, I don't know, management, whatever they are, another company that they don't know
Speaker:what's gonna happen with it. So yes, so we are kind of, it's kind of like that organic growth
Speaker:of a collective for sure. And it's been quite amazing. That part has been unbelievable, the
Speaker:connections we've made, the people we've talked with. I mean, every Saturday we're out here,
Speaker:we set up a table, an attempt, and we talk to people and we give flyers, and it's just been
Speaker:amazing the support. Quite amazing, actually. Have you had the support of your local counsellor?
Speaker:You want to go to the next question? Yeah, I mean, yes, but, right? I mean, she says she's
Speaker:going to vote no. Yeah. But I think, look, I've just heard, I have talked with her a couple
Speaker:of times. I've heard other people, yeah, other constituents just utter the phrase, the few
Speaker:phrases that they're just disappointed that she doesn't do more and other counsellors don't
Speaker:do more. Now, she might say a devil's advocate would say, well, what else do you want me to
Speaker:do? I'm going to vote against this. I don't know, it just feels like there's a lack of
Speaker:real action and continuity and it just seems like nobody's willing to put themselves to
Speaker:die on a sword. I just feel this way about our federal politics too. Can't you just say, look,
Speaker:housing our people here is very important to me. I don't care about the politics beyond
Speaker:that. You know, if we don't have, I don't, it just feels like we don't have a brave enough
Speaker:politician to just go out there. Maybe there's a few, I don't know. But so, it's a long answer
Speaker:to say, yeah, but not really. You know, she hasn't really done anything other than I guess
Speaker:in theory supporting us is good. At least she's not against our struggle. Yeah. And it sounds
Speaker:like she's outnumbered on council, according to your other sources. Big time. And that is
Speaker:a struggle. I know Horizon Ottawa has done a lot of work trying to change those numbers
Speaker:at Ottawa City Council so that not all councillors there have been paid for by developers. Clearly
Speaker:a little bit more work to be done there, but that is disheartening, especially when you
Speaker:know largely your fate rests on the hands of these councillors. who make up the committees
Speaker:that make the decisions, but it's all really rubber stamping, or like you say, details that
Speaker:really aren't important to you folks. Yeah. I wanted to get into another one of the underhanded
Speaker:tactics used by your landlords. When they put in an application and when they are responding
Speaker:to media, they have been using something called like a tenant relocation and assistance plan.
Speaker:And they refer to it. They're like, don't worry, right? We've got this plan. We're going to
Speaker:relocate these folks and we're going to take care of them. But when you look at the document
Speaker:they've attached to the planning application, it's anything but is that right? Do you want
Speaker:to kind of get into how they're getting away with using that kind of language when it's
Speaker:really all they're doing is referencing? bylaws and saying they have every right to just push
Speaker:you out of there? Yeah, that one, you know, swearing might start soon when I answer that
Speaker:one. So one of my fellow, one of my neighbors took them up on that, was like, OK, what is
Speaker:the, what are you going to do? So they wanted, they do a key Gigi search for other units,
Speaker:for other apartments in the city. Yeah, thanks a lot. That's their relocation plan. I'm not
Speaker:exaggerating. I mean, that's the relocation plan. And they say, yes, well, we give the,
Speaker:we abide by the legal. requirements of giving three months of our rent is compensation. I
Speaker:mean, okay, that's nothing. That's not even enough for first and last month's rent at our
Speaker:current rent. So that's the relocation plan. Kijiji adds. And okay, would they pay for moving
Speaker:expenses? I don't know. Maybe they would because it gets people out of here, right? 500 bucks.
Speaker:I don't know. Well, you'll never know if they won't sit down at the table with you and negotiate,
Speaker:right? That's a great point, Jessa. You folks have sort of, you've dug your heels in, though
Speaker:people have said, we are not leaving, right? You're asking them to meet with you or, you
Speaker:know, we are continually shaming you. Let's say that doesn't move them and the planning
Speaker:committee does what they say they're going to do. What then? Yeah, I mean, well, you know,
Speaker:we've talked quite a bit about. the procedures and how we can be forced out. I mean, they
Speaker:can't demolish a building until it's vacant. And the only person, the only office with the
Speaker:power to actually remove us is the sheriff's office of what? I think it's the Ontario Superior
Speaker:Court. We think the worst case scenario, the earliest that would happen is May 2025. Worst
Speaker:case scenario. I mean, I guess the answer is... Legally, there's nothing else we could do,
Speaker:right? If the city vote approves this and we lose our eviction hearing at the landlord tenant
Speaker:board, which from all we've heard. is in favour of the landlords, like rules in favour of the
Speaker:landlords. I'm just saying that, but that's what we've been told. I'm not an expert on
Speaker:it. However, I do need to point out that one of the adjudicators on the landlord and tenant
Speaker:board is Alex Djiboulsi, who used to work for Smart Living. Yeah. He was appointed by the
Speaker:Ontario Conservatives to this position. There's an article in the Leveller that I'm going to
Speaker:link folks to because it does a great job. And as it's telling the story, it speaks of this
Speaker:plan that they reference. And it's exactly as you describe it. And as you read it, it's got
Speaker:this, oh, man, they have figured out this bureaucracy really well. And then you go on and it tells
Speaker:of the consulting firms that these folks hire. in order to navigate through the city's bureaucracy
Speaker:so that they know which wheels to Greece. And there is a whole economy around facilitating
Speaker:these relationships between developers, landlords and the city that ends up being the gatekeepers
Speaker:of these affordable housing units. I don't know what this is, but there's been articles written
Speaker:about our story in The Citizen, CTV News has covered it. Le Droit, the French Ottawa newspaper,
Speaker:has covered it. But in all the cases, I don't find that the journalists take smart living
Speaker:properties to task on this issue. They try to get their side. I think, I don't know what
Speaker:intellectual it was if it was Norman Finkelstein, but somebody was saying, you know, whatever
Speaker:the journalistic ethics are. It's not like there's two sides here. Like, I know I'm biased, right?
Speaker:There's not two sides. You're taking away people's homes. It's pretty damn simple. I just, at
Speaker:least as a journalist, you could ask, oh, so what is your relocation plan entailed? Could
Speaker:you be more specific? What does it actually mean specifically for that person? Like, I
Speaker:don't know, I just, I feel like there's a real failure on some of the more mainstream media.
Speaker:Not that that's anything new, but. No, no, and it's also replicated, it's like chicken and
Speaker:the egg, I don't know, but in society where because it's legal, because it's within their
Speaker:right as property owners to do whatever they want with their property. And the way that
Speaker:we view renters or low income people as not actually being in charge of their destiny,
Speaker:almost like they have no right to be. It's a very too widely accepted idea that it's okay
Speaker:to be beholden to landlords and have no control. over the kind of ground under your feet to
Speaker:have no stability or guarantees in that way. And with like over 30% of Ontarians being in
Speaker:the tenant class, that is unacceptable, right? That is far too precarious of a way to live.
Speaker:But it's the only reality for folks of a certain income that are the streets. I have to add
Speaker:one another point. I guess it's in this general area. because I think it's important, you can,
Speaker:I can maybe ask you if other groups have brought this point up. The City of Ottawa recognizes
Speaker:that the land that we're on is unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. So I reached out to
Speaker:an elder and asked him, an elder of this Indigenous group, and he said, yeah, they don't, they
Speaker:don't care. In these areas, the governments don't care. So I ask you, like, I find it an
Speaker:incredible irony that, first of all, the City is not asking the people whose land this is.
Speaker:They acknowledge that it's the unceded land of this Indigenous group. So therefore, in
Speaker:my mind, wouldn't it make sense to ask them how they would feel about people being displaced?
Speaker:Yet again, yes, we're not Indigenous people, but I don't know if other groups sort of talked
Speaker:about this. Like, how are we any better as a society if we keep doing the same thing to
Speaker:individuals? I don't... like... The answer is we're not. And those are like all the land
Speaker:acknowledgements that people do. But at the same time, you know, you'll see my sweatshirt
Speaker:says land back. And most of my neighbors would see that like, you know, and the idea of actually
Speaker:giving land back is foreign to them. Yet they will recite a land acknowledgement when they
Speaker:get introduced on zoom. And so, yeah, Ottawa city council is no different than that. But
Speaker:when we talked about herring gay, when you talk to Andrew Crosby. He spoke of the displacement
Speaker:of those people as an urban colonialism. Interesting. Because as you know, low income folks are more
Speaker:predominantly racialized people and other marginalized groups, right? That is what happens economically
Speaker:when you're marginalized for other reasons. And in its way, the city of Ottawa is continuing
Speaker:because they're settlers and we... been raised in a settler atmosphere with those kinds of
Speaker:values of colonialism, our whole country is built on it. And they're doing that to areas
Speaker:of the city where we don't like those empty stores and they can show that to neighbors,
Speaker:right? You don't want these empty stores. Look at this photo. Look at that. This is a rough
Speaker:area, quote unquote. We're going to clean it up. We know how to live smart living knows
Speaker:how to live, right? And dream. Dreams Unlimited is a Toronto landlord that, you know, we're
Speaker:going to just completely transform. We'll show you what a city should look like. And you're
Speaker:looking around at your community going, but this is my community. And they're like, no,
Speaker:no. I mean, that is colonialism repeating itself. Interesting. Right. So, yeah, there's I think
Speaker:you're going to find a lot of people. that will acknowledge they are on unceded territory,
Speaker:but would not dream of ceding control of that land, like in any way at all. It's got two
Speaker:points. One, I used to work for the University of Ottawa, who I have no problem throwing under
Speaker:the bus. Again and again and again and again, I would be a sound technician at events. And
Speaker:once they started doing the land acknowledgement, I'm making the same point in a different context.
Speaker:They would say, yes, we want to say we're on this land. Sometimes they would even try to
Speaker:use the Indigenous language. Fine, what are you going to do about it? I mean, what, how
Speaker:are you, what is this? It's just so, it bothered me so much when I wasn't making any money at
Speaker:all, shift work. And they're those, God, not everyone. I'm not saying all the people there
Speaker:are bad, no. But the institution and the corporatization of it is maddening to me. So there's that point,
Speaker:but also on the smart living, you were saying, Jessa, that they know how to live. Smart living
Speaker:and those developers know how to live well. Tamara Bazza, the CEO of Smart Living, along
Speaker:with cardiologist, Vinny Kriakosse, are investors in a brand spanking new fancy, fancy gym and
Speaker:social club that's opening sometime in the fall of 2024. It's an Altea Active, there's one
Speaker:in Toronto, and I believe there's one in Vancouver, A-L-T-E-A. It's a fancy gym, really expensive.
Speaker:And that's the kind of community that Tamra Baza and Biddy Kurikosa want to create. It
Speaker:kind of fits with the whole yacht photo. It has, it's all the same vibe. You know what?
Speaker:I'm not liking it. That's it. That's a great point. Maybe there'll be special yacht. I don't
Speaker:know demonstrations. I don't know what that is I have a feeling like we've got the bridal
Speaker:path here in Toronto and it's all the same folks me thinks These are the same circles But yeah
Speaker:knowing these folks made their money off like flipping rooming houses to begin with they're
Speaker:like I Don't know. They've got real mr. burns kind of imagery in my mind. I have to look
Speaker:at the posters, but like that's, you know, twiddling the fingers and planning on how they're going
Speaker:to like evict the poorest people in the neighborhood and build ultra gyms. Yeah. Like, oh. On that
Speaker:note, my son said, these guys, dad, these like, these. Landlords are like cartoon character
Speaker:villains. Teach our children landlords are villains. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, my children
Speaker:know, they know bankers, landlords, and I'm just gonna say it, and police officers, they
Speaker:know within the realities of who's the hero and who is not here. Good, yeah. But, Ben,
Speaker:I do appreciate you taking the time to tell the story of the Bank Block Tenants Association.
Speaker:You folks, you got a battle on your hands, but you're absolutely fearless. I know you folks
Speaker:won't hold back. Don't. You've got nothing to lose except your home. So yeah, I appreciate
Speaker:you taking the fight on, not just for yourself and your fellow tenants that might be in a,
Speaker:maybe a different situation as you, but collectively taking on. the villains of the tenant class.
Speaker:Thank you very much, Jess, for having me. I hope that this story sheds some light on our
Speaker:battle and maybe can help other people, other tenants who are facing similar struggles. So
Speaker:it was a real pleasure to talk about it. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Thanks. That is a wrap
Speaker:on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also a very big thank
Speaker:you to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent
Speaker:production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like
Speaker:to help us continue disrupting the status quo, please share our content and if you have the
Speaker:means, consider becoming a patron. Not only does our support come from the progressive
Speaker:community, so does our content. So reach out to us and let us know what or who we should
Speaker:be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
