Landlords flout the law while government looks the other way
Nova Scotia landlords openly flout the law and families with children suffer the consequences. And nobody within the provincial bureaucracy seems to give a damn.
Housing
We’re friends, we’re just sharing a home. Residents fall victim to rooming house bylaw
Nobody wants illegal rooming houses, but not every arrangement where people live communally is a rooming house. One such household in Dartmouth North has been told by the city that they are exceeding the allowed number of boarders, and that one of the residents has to leave.
Video: The public housing waiting game
Roving reporter and anti-poverty advocate Jodi Brown meets up with Crystal, a public housing tenant in Halifax who has a sad and way too common story to tell about public housing waiting lists.
MetCaptivated: Metcap Living tenants just want a decent place to live
Activist and talented photographer Jodi Brown went to the rally by unhappy Metcap Living tenants of a large apartment building on 15 Kennedy Drive, in Dartmouth. Here are her photos and her report.
Kendall Worth: Happy ending after Community Services screw up
Poverty activist and frequent contributor Kendall Worth writes about several couples who weren’t receiving the full shelter allowance they were entitled to, how it was discovered, and how it was fixed. News you can use.
Metcap Living tenant: It’s been a nightmare since day one
In this video citizen-reporter and poverty activist Jodi Brown meets up with Sarah, a young woman who was in a bad spot when she asked Community Services for help. After stays in a shelter and hotel, Sarah now lives in a North Dartmouth apartment building, and deals with leaking roofs and all kinds of other building troubles. Landlord Metcap Living is in no apparent hurry to fix it.
Media release: It’s time for healthy homes in Dartmouth: Nova Scotia ACORN members rally to demand repairs and respect from Metcap!
News release issued by ACORN Nova Scotia: Tenants of 15 Kennedy Drive, and other allies, are rallying outside the Metcap-owned apartment on Friday to demand that the building manager and superintendents show tenants more respect.
Sorry, no kids. Adult only rentals counter to Nova Scotia Human Rights legislation
Poverty activist and frequent contributor Brenda Thompson writes about adults only buildings and the law. She was one of the activists who, in the early 1980s, brought about changes that make discrimination based on source of income (welfare) and age (whether you have children) illegal. Landlords openly break that law all the time, and the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission just sits back.
No heat! Furnace problems experienced by public housing tenants far from resolved
More about widespread heating issues at Greystone Drive public housing units in Spryfield, and the Housing Authority’s apparent inability to fix it once and for all. “Maybe nobody cares because we are not as well off as everybody else. That’s almost how I feel,” one of the affected tenants says.
Public housing tenants left without heat for 36 hours, blame contractor
It took contractors working for the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority 36 hours to restore heat in a 6-unit building in the Greystone Drive area in Spryfield. The Housing Authority blames the high winds of the January “weather bomb” for causing the furnace problems. Problem with that response is that it wasn’t windy when the furnace died.