Ilene Koculyn says she could end up with no place to live come September if a planned eviction for renovations goes ahead at her Esquimalt apartment building.
“This is just ridiculous,” said Koculyn, who has lived in the building at 519 Sturdee St. for 13 years. “People are considered throwaways.”
The 68-year-old retiree pays $830 a month for a one-bedroom unit, out of a pension of about $1,800 a month.
Koculyn said she’s resigned to her fate and has already started packing, in hopes one of her friends might be able to take her in.
“We need affordable rentals,” she said. “There are so many people — they’re all in the same boat.”
Every tenant in the 30-suite building has received an eviction notice for September to allow for repairs, said Douglas King, executive director of Together Against Poverty Society, which held a news conference at the complex on Tuesday.
“That means the landlord is trying to basically clear out the entire building so that the building can be renovated.”
Rents could roughly double as a result, he said. Monthly rents at the site currently range from about $8oo to about $1,500, with some tenants having been there for up to 20 years.
King said the landlord has to apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch to evict the tenants — in what’s often called a “renoviction” — with a hearing set for Thursday.
Several tenants have told the society they were approached by the landlord to take a $5,000 payout in exchange for giving up the right to challenge their eviction, he said.
Some tenants accepted the landlord’s offer, but up to 10 — including Koculyn — have not and will be at the hearing, King said
Koculyn said the offer included provisions like not discussing the case or seeking legal advice, so she decided to turn it down.
King said it’s not fair to force tenants to choose between challenging an eviction and having enough money to relocate if they’re not successful.
He pointed to the irony that the building was used in the Netflix series Maid, the story of a single mother struggling to stay afloat.
The show highlighted “how difficult it is for someone who’s low income to transition from one thing to the next, and how they’re not supported in that process,” King said.
But now, it’s not a TV show, he said. “It’s not make-believe — it’s their reality.”
When an entire building like the one on Sturdee Street can be cleared through renoviction “that’s a failure,” said King, noting tenants are only entitled to one month’s rent as compensation in the event of a renoviction under residential tenancy rules.
The building was bought last summer by Sturdee Investments, a company run by Andrew Rebeyka, who King said has a history of renovating apartment buildings and then rerenting at higher rates.
Rebeyka said Tuesday he had no comment.
Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said renovictions are “dramatically down” since changes were made at the provincial level. Those included requiring landlords to apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch, a step that includes dispute resolution for tenants, the ministry said.
“I don’t know the details of this particular case, but I will say there is a process in place,” Kahlon said during a media scrum Tuesday at the legislature.
He noted that landlords are required to provide four months’ notice to tenants being evicted for renovations.
Kahlon said his ministry will be closely watching what happens.
King said displaced tenants can be offered a suite after a renovation, but it would be at the market rate rather than what they were originally paying.
“Ultimately the government is not doing enough to protect the tenants here.”
Seniors and people on disability are often the victims in cases like the one on Sturdee Street, he said.
King noted that the provincial government set up the Rental Protection Fund last year to help non-profits purchase buildings like the one on Sturdee Street and do renovations so tenants aren’t displaced, adding he’d like to see it happen in more cases.
In February, it was announced that Lu’ma Native Housing Society would buy a 16-unit apartment building at 860 Carrie St. in Esquimalt that had been up for potential redevelopment, with a $3-million contribution from the Rental Protection Fund plus low-interest financing.
