It's seriously gotten to that point where even people who work their asses off 60+ hours a week can't make ends meet or save for an inevitable "rainy day". Toronto bar owner battling terminal cancer served eviction notice for apartment she’s lived in for 23 years A 42-year-old woman has watched the sky soften into sunset from her fire escape in Toronto’s west end for nearly half of her life, but her time there is dwindling. She’s battling terminal breast cancer, and now an eviction notice. “I don't understand how one human being could do this to another human being. This could actually kill me at this stage in my illness,” Abra Shiner, a longtime residential tenant and owner of a popular Toronto bar, told CTV News Toronto. Shiner was served an eviction notice last month, instructing her to vacate by the end of March, after the Victorian multi-unit home she’s lived in for 23 years at Queen Street West and Dovercourt Road was sold to new owners. The eviction was delivered less than a year after she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. "It’s just a matter of time before it hits an organ we can’t cut out,” Shiner said about the illness spreading through her lymphatic system. Her ovaries are scheduled to be removed next week. “They have given me five years, maybe 10,” she said. For months she said she was managing, balancing doctors’ appointments, treatment, surgery and running Swan Dive, her beloved bar of seven years at Dundas Street West and Brock Avenue. Consistent with her more than two decade rapport, she said she has continued to pay her rent early or on time. “This eviction has really thrown a monkey wrench in that. I was trying to have a good life for the last few years of it, trying to find some joy, but it’s hanging over my head,” she said, as her voice trembled into tears. “I don’t want to have my entire life uprooted and destroyed. Displacing me from my home, I wouldn't be able to survive the stress of moving 23 years of life.” Shiner will have an opportunity to present her case in front of the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) who will “consider the circumstances of both parties” when an eviction hearing takes place, the LTB told CTV News Toronto. “There is a legal framework for considering compassionate arguments, although it can be very difficult to override or overcome the interests of a land owner,” Brendan Jowett, a lawyer at Neighbourhood Legal Services, told CTV News Toronto. “But it can happen.” CTV News Toronto reached out to the new property owners but did not receive a response. According to the eviction notice, one of the landlords’ children plans to move into Shiner’s unit. To communicate the severity of the situation, her general practitioner penned a letter to her landlords communicating the “detrimental effect” the eviction could have on Shiner’s health. “I strongly urge you to consider Abra’s current medical condition and the stress that this eviction notice is causing her. I urge you to allow her to remain in her home, as it will greatly aid in her recovery and provide her with a sense of stability during an already difficult time,” Dr. Ratika Birdi wrote in a letter to Shiner’s landlords on Jan. 13. Beyond her doctor, more than 5,500 people have signed a petition supporting the withdrawal of Shiner’s eviction. “I just want to stay home and try to finish my life happily,” she said. ************************************************ Okay, so first off... 23 years of paying on time or ahead. This isn't some poor person some of you can randomly disdain, but an incredibly hard working woman. Second "for the use of a family member" is generally false in these cases, but often faster than a renoviction would be for the landlord. The fact is that rent increase guidelines mean her rent has only been able to be increased about 2-3%/yearly for the last 23 years. They get her out of there, they can set the rent to whatever they can get. anyways, as of this morning that 5500 petition signers is fast approaching 24000 signers. It'd be amazing if a few of you from far away wouldn't mind adding yours.
You would think by this time she would understand the human race mostly sucks. Do not get me wrong, there are some good ones, and happiness is relative which is why I am still here, but I will fuck heaven and hell up if they ever make me reincarnate. I will never ever live in a place with republicans or abrahamic religious people ever fucking again. I will beat god to death with the nuts of jesus before I come back here.
bar owner, so sure she's well aware how shit people can be. part of this is the fact of location... Ontario had some really good regulations about the landlord/tenant relationship introduced under the conservative government in the 70s, like the aforementioned rent increase rules and spelling out each party's obligations to the other. THis was because someone back then got the fact that rent is a significant driver of inflation while also being a basic human need. Because the rate increase between tenancy rules have been dropped, landlords are motivated to get rid of long standing tenants. In the last 10 years, rents have tripled in this city while affordable housing stock has dwindled as everyone tried to get in on the short term/air bnb train. A few years ago when I was faced with renoviction here it was literally impossible to find a comparable place in the city (that is, a step above a rooming house), let alone my community, for the same rate... Thanking my lucky stars that we were able to put up enough of a fight and organize the land trust to keep most of the incumbent tenants here... I'd have had to move to Hamilton or something, give up the three jobs I was working, and start over again someplace completely unfamiliar.
I am just realizing that most humans are cruel and heartless, and most of the rest are only pretending to care.
yeah... fortunately we recognize that tenants actually have a stake in their homes. Or at least we used to. Not too mention after 23 years, she's probably paid for the building's value at the time she moved in. you can defend profiteering off of a basic survival need all you want but you'll just look like an idiot more than you normally do.
Irrelevant. And you can defend your false sense of entitlement to other peoples' property and effort as long as you want. I will take you less seriously than THEY do.
*A thought balloon containing the words "maybe it's me" floats through UA's head* *It gets obliterated by little 8-bit video game spaceships*
our laws are different, recognizing tenants as having a financial stake and that landlords have obligations when they have the power to disrupt someone's life. at least it's in character for you to take the side of investors over a terminally ill human being. not being taken seriously by you is tantamount to not being taken seriously by the pile of shit beside a fire hydrant.
I agree that the landlord can do whatever he or she wants as it's their land. Having been a landlord myself I can definitely say I'd never kick this poor woman out given her circumstances. Faithful tenants like that should be rewarded and not treated like shit, as good tenants like that are few and far between. Real shitty decision on the part of the landlord here
Far as I understand the RTA, she's supposed to have security of tenure some circumstances notwithstanding. i.e.: owner's personal use as a primary residence or one of their relatives. Unfortunately, that is so commonly misused as to become suspicious... cheaper than renoviction, too. Problem is that by the time she can prove a bad faith termination she'll either be settled elsewhere or dead. That was the big issue with my building... I'd been here for 5 years and was the still the new guy when a REIT bought us thinking they could piggyback on the cannabis tourism with a ghost hotel. The apartments that did empty out were given cheap ass facelifts that should only have taken maybe a week each and put back on the market for double the prior rates and listed on AirBnB until then. Another interesting side effect of this lipstick on a pig gentrification has been the effect on small scale business. For most of my life there was a corner cafe/dry goods place on the one corner. The one family had rented it from another for nearly 60 years until the original players both passed. Enter a local real estate broker who got another bigger money investor sold on the idea of owning a place just like it, who then offered the heirs of the owner more than they could refuse. A few months later, Kensington lost one of it's social centres. A year later, the new owners folded because there was already a well known weed themed cafe across the street. In the ensuing six years, there've been at least four others try to start something in that space. Every one of them (obviously) has folded. Same with the corner restaurant at the top of my street. It's been empty or getting ready to open far more than anything there has been open. The tenant well has run dry, and now they're sucking the last molecules of moisture out. The irony of course, is much like Mirvish Village raising the price of existence beyond reach eradicates everything that makes the place worthwhile.
