On June 3rd, the Alliance appeared before Council's Planning & Housing Committee to urge Council to allow the proposed renovictions bylaw report to come forward for full public consideration.
This is not a debate about whether Council should pass a bylaw today. It is a debate about whether Ottawa should examine a proven policy tool that other municipalities have used to reduce displacement, preserve affordable housing, and prevent homelessness.
The rationale for bringing forward a renovictions bylaw is straightforward: prevention works better than crisis management.
Under Ontario's current framework, including the amendments introduced through Bill 97, tenant protections remain largely reactive. Tenants receive an N13 notice, are told they must leave their homes, and are then expected to navigate a complex legal system to challenge the eviction or enforce their rights. This places the burden almost entirely on tenants to know their rights, gather evidence, access legal support, and advocate for themselves through the Landlord and Tenant Board.
For many tenants, particularly seniors, Indigenous community members, newcomers, people with disabilities, low-income households, often female led - this is an unrealistic expectation. The City’s Anti-Racism Strategy and Women and Gender Equity Strategy seek to implement municipal policies and services that address inequity. This is one such opportunity to do so.
A renovictions bylaw takes a different approach. It is preventative. It seeks to stop unnecessary displacement before it happens rather than attempting to remedy the harm after a tenant has already lost their home.
As Douglas Kwan, Executive Director of Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, has noted, the fundamental difference between Bill 97 and municipal renoviction bylaws is that provincial amendments only help tenants after they have been renovicted. Municipal bylaws are designed to prevent bad-faith renovictions from occurring in the first place.
The distinction is significant. A smoke alarm and a fire department both address fires, but they serve different purposes. One seeks to prevent tragedy before it occurs; the other responds after the emergency has already begun. Municipal renoviction bylaws are preventative tools.
This matters because Ottawa is facing an acute affordability crisis.
Research by housing policy expert Steve Pomeroy found that Ottawa loses approximately 31 naturally occurring affordable housing units for every one new affordable housing unit that is created. Every affordable rental unit lost through displacement places additional pressure on an already strained housing system and pushes more residents closer to housing insecurity and homelessness.
The urgency of this issue is reflected in the data. According to Ontario ACORN's Renoviction Report, Ottawa experienced one of the highest increases in N13 notices in the province and has been identified as having the third-highest number of N13 filings in Ontario. Renovictions are not a hypothetical concern. They are a growing contributor to the loss of affordable rental housing in our city.
Critics of municipal renoviction bylaws often point to Bill 97 and suggest that the Province has already solved the problem. However, municipalities across Ontario have concluded otherwise.
Hamilton implemented a renovictions bylaw that has been reported by municipal staff as reducing N13 applications by approximately 80%.
Hamilton staff themselves described the bylaw as successful:
https://pub-hamilton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=486330
Importantly, experts note that the appropriate measure of success is not simply the existence of a bylaw, but the reduction in N13 applications filed with the Landlord and Tenant Board year over year. By that measure, an 80% reduction represents a remarkable achievement.
Last week, London released results from its Rental Unit Repair Licence bylaw showing a 62% reduction.
London's report can be found here:
https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=123890
While London's results are somewhat lower than Hamilton's, they nevertheless demonstrate that municipal intervention can significantly reduce renovictions. In fact, London's experience is particularly important because London does not have some of the additional tenant protection mechanisms that Hamilton has implemented, yet it still achieved a substantial reduction.
These outcomes reinforce an important point: municipal oversight works.
The purpose of these bylaws is not to prevent legitimate renovations. The purpose is to ensure that tenants are not displaced unnecessarily and that landlords who seek vacant possession can demonstrate that it is genuinely required.
Importantly, these bylaws address gaps that Bill 97 does not.
The Province has not created a system for independent verification that vacant possession is actually necessary before a tenant is displaced. It has not created proactive local oversight. It has not created mechanisms to ensure tenants receive accurate information about their rights. And it has not established a process that allows municipalities to monitor renovations and support enforcement of tenants' right of return.
Municipal renoviction bylaws fill these gaps.
Perhaps most importantly, they change incentives.
Without municipal oversight, a landlord can issue an N13 notice and place the burden on the tenant to challenge it. With a municipal licensing framework, landlords must provide evidence upfront and are subject to review before displacement occurs. This creates accountability, transparency, and deterrence from bad faith renovictions.
The evidence from Hamilton and London suggests that when this accountability exists, N13 applications decline dramatically.
For a city that loses 31 affordable homes for every new affordable home created, this should matter.
The Alliance to End Homelessness believes that preserving existing affordable housing must be a central component of any strategy to prevent homelessness. Once affordable housing is lost, it is extraordinarily difficult and expensive to replace. Preventing displacement is therefore one of the most effective homelessness prevention measures available to municipalities.
Council does not need to decide today whether a renovictions bylaw should be adopted.
But Council should allow the report to come forward.
Staff have undertaken extensive research. Community organizations, tenants, housing advocates, and residents have urged action. Other municipalities have generated valuable evidence that deserves careful examination.
To dismiss the proposal before Council has even reviewed the report would undermine that work and deny residents the transparent and evidence-based discussion they deserve.
Ottawa's housing crisis demands that we consider every effective tool available to preserve affordable housing and prevent homelessness. Please allow the conversation to take place.