With some rents doubling between tenants, Nova Scotians want to know if rent cap is staying

When Elizabeth O'Hanley was scrolling Kijiji in early March looking for a new place to live, she saw an ad that shocked her. The Dartmouth triplex she had just moved out of was listed for more than double the rent she had been paying to live there for years. 

O'Hanley had lived on the top floor of the small family home since 2016. Her most recent rent was $925 a month. The listing she saw for a smaller unit on the middle floor was $2,350 monthly.

After posting about the situation on TikTok, she heard both units were rented in a matter of days. 

Even though Nova Scotia currently limits annual rent increases to two per cent for existing tenants, some landlords are attempting to get around the rule by evicting tenants for various reasons or using fixed-term leases which must be renegotiated at the end of each term. New leases with new tenants do not fall under the rent cap and rent can be increased by any amount. 

Housing advocates fear the situation will become even worse if the cap is allowed to expire at the end of this year as scheduled.

"I don't think anything's worth that price," O'Hanley said. "I think that if you're living in a luxury condo because that's a priority to you, then maybe $2,300 is great for you. But [for me] no, absolutely not."

Late last year, O'Hanley and the tenant in the middle unit found out their fixed-term leases wouldn't be renewed at the end of March. Their new landlord told them he and his mother were moving into the top two floors of the home. 

O'Hanley said that sent her on a months-long search for another rental unit in her $1,500 price range. 

"It was crisis mode," she said. "I started looking for apartments, there was absolutely no options. My neighbour downstairs was in the exact same situation as me, one-income household ... scouring every day to find apartments."

"There really was nothing available."

O'Hanley has a full-time marketing job and considers herself middle class. She said she never thought she would be unable to afford to buy a home, let alone be nearly priced out of the rental market.

She says she's concerned her situation is a preview of what's to come after December.

The two per cent cap was introduced by the previous Liberal government in 2020 to protect renters during the COVID-19 pandemic. The current PC government campaigned against rent controls, but extended the cap to the end of 2023 in response to the housing crisis.

Organizations that work with tenants share O'Hanley's concerns. 

"I think what's really frightening is that it is a good glimpse at what we can expect when the rent cap comes off, if nothing else is put in place, that we are going to see rents doubling or tripling," said Joanne Hussey, a community legal worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid Service in Halifax.

Hussey said her organization is already seeing frequent examples of this kind of increase while the rent cap is still in place. 

"We know that wages, people's earnings haven't tripled and so for people who are working minimum wage or ... seniors or people who receive income assistance, there's absolutely no way that their economic situation allows them to keep up with rent increases of that size."

Meanwhile, the group representing landlords in the province says the rent cap is making the issue worse, and would like to see it expire in December.

"Being realistic, we'll probably see some kind of phase-out or some adjustments to it that will make it more palatable for all parties," said Kevin Russell, executive director of the Investment Property Owners Association of Nova Scotia. 

"But something has to change and preferably ... the rent cap would be removed. If not, it would be adjusted to reflect the current market conditions when it comes to [the] increasing cost to operate the apartment rentals."

Province stays tight-lipped

In an interview Tuesday, Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Internal Services Colton LeBlanc told CBC his department is "considering all options" when it comes to the future of the rent cap, but would not describe those options.

LeBlanc said department staff have been meeting regularly with stakeholders and will announce any changes by the fall. 

"When we're talking about the Residential Tenancies Program itself, it does have broad-reaching impacts on the lives of Nova Scotians," LeBlanc said. "We're talking 300,000 tenants, 6,000 landlords across Nova Scotia. So we continue to take that feedback from those Nova Scotians and ... [are] continuously striving to strike a balance."

When asked if his department is looking to other provinces with rent control systems, like B.C. and Ontario, LeBlanc said the Houston government is "not in support of a rent control regime."

Concerns about rising homelessness

According to the latest Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation rental market report, even with the rent cap, Halifax had the highest year-over-year spike in the country for residential rental costs, with the average rent up 9.3 per cent. 

As of January, the Affordable Housing Association of Nova Scotia had identified 796 people in Halifax who had been without housing for more than six months. 

At a recent council meeting, Max Chauvin, Halifax's director of housing and homelessness, told Halifax Regional Council if the provincial rent cap is allowed to expire at the end of this year HRM could have 500 to 1,000 more unhoused people within months.

LeBlanc said this does concern him, and the provincial government is taking an "all hands on deck" approach. 

"We're working very hard as a government to tackle the housing needs in our province," he said. 

More assistance needed, says landlord group

Russell said the rent cap could be leading to increased homelessness because landlords who are losing money are selling their units and leaving the business. 

He said the onus for solving the housing crisis shouldn't fall only on landlords, and the province needs to provide more support.  

"The government has to get involved," Russell said. "They have to fix this problem, they have to increase the housing supply. They have to incentivize landlords to be able to stay in the business, and they have to incentivize developers to develop more housing."

"They have to have a clear plan and that includes assistance to landlords, and it includes assistance to renters."