Tenancy, Uncertainty, Fear and Social Cleansing
Wednesday, 7. November 2007, 06:19:07
Are my Neighbours really heartless facists?
I am tired of all the negativity projected onto my building by a residents association I had never heard of until reading and article interviewing them on the building I live in, brought on by the mass evictions at 2100 block of Pandora Street. That building, which after a flood brought on by a despicable lack on maintenance had the city mass evict the tenants. Those tenants are having a very rough time finding housing, mostly because there is none, none that would approach the level of housing they had in that fated building. They had their own place, their own kitchen and bathroom. Most of the housing out there at their level of income will have neither.
The arguments goes, well they won't have bed bugs and mice, and floods at least. No one can guarantee that. Bedbugs have no notion of what is and what is not the appropriate building to infest. It takes on traveller on a coat to start and infestation. The bug doesn't suddenly realize he's in the Hyatt and immdiately packs up and leaves to the Lower East Side. I've seen mice and rats on Granville Island, well fed. Lots of expensive, yet leaky condos sport molds, fungus and floods, every bit as noxious. If it was so much worse at the building at 2100 Pandora it was for one reason, the tenants were poor and the landlord knew he would have tenants whether he spent money on the building or not. The landlord has no competition, he doesn't have to try. If there were sufficient units for people in low income groups to rent they would choose the best for their money and this slumlord would soon find himself with a largely vacant building. With more buildings to choose from tenants could be choosier as to hygiene, upkeep and other tenants. Most of us would, given the choice choose to live somewhere safe from the criminal element.
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