Immediate action needed to fix Ottawa's rooming houses, report says

Broken windows. Exposed electrical wires. Cockroachand bedbug infestations. No heating.

Those are just a few of theproblems facing residents of Ottawa's 1,300-plus rooming houses, according to a new report that urges both the city and the province to take "immediate action" to render those houses livable.

"This is a vulnerable group of people. And they are not prone to complaining," said Joanna Binch, a nurse practitioner with the Somerset West Community Health Centre (SWCHC) who performs rooming house outreach.

"They're afraid that the alternative is to live in the shelter system and if they complain, that they will have no other option," she said.

'Really bad luck'

TitledHealth and Housing in West-Central Ottawa: The Facts on Rooming Houses, the report was issued jointly Tuesdayby the SWCHC and the Centretown Community Health Centre (CCHC), who serveareas that includemore than half of the city's rooming houses.

Rooming houses are buildings with multiple rooms that are rented out individually, with tenants sharing a bathroom and/or kitchen.

The Ciy of Ottawa requires landlords to have a rooming house licence before renting out one, but the authors of the report note that despite this rooming houses often fail to meet minimum standards for safety, affordability and maintenance.

As part of the report, researchers collected personal stories from 10 tenants of Ottawa rooming houses.

Eight of those tenantssaid theyhad to dealwith rodent or insect infestations in their homes, while another eight claimed that common spaces like kitchens and bathrooms were often unclean.

Four of the 10 residents told researchers they kept to themselves because of their neighbours' drug and alcohol use.

Those sorts of concerns are intricately tied to residents' well-being, with the report notingrooming house tenants with the worst physical and mental health"areoften concentrated in rooming houses in the poorest physical conditions."

We need to look at options that are safe, affordable and healthy.- Simone Thibault, CCHC executive director

"These are people who've had really bad luck and really difficult trauma in their lives, difficult challenges in their lives," said CCHC executive directorSimone Thibault on CBC Radio'sAll In A Day.

"We need to look at options that are safe, affordable and healthy."

The average rooming house in Ottawa costs between $400 and $600 a month, according to the report. While that's significantly less than the average Ottawa rental property, the typical rooming house tenant receives $681 per month in social assistance meaning that the "bulk" of their income goes towards housing, said Thibault.

Affordable housing crisis

The report calls upon the city of Ottawa to ensure that all rooming houses conform to the standards set out in the Residential Tenancies Act, while also changing its bylaw so that a maximum of four people share the same kitchen and bathroom.

It also urges the province to provide rent-supplement programs to "close the gap" between the cost of rental housing and the assistance provided by Ontario Works, while also offering financial incentives for landlords to improve and maintain the units.

"I think we'd have a much healthier housing system [if these recommendations were implemented]. And we need all levers in housing," said Thibault.

"We know we have an affordable housing crisis, both nationally, provincially in the city. This is one part of it, and if we can get this right, it would be a good step for a very vulnerable population."