Abby Leung has lived in the same suite — the ground floor of a Vancouver Special in Joyce-Collingwood — for 17 years. She has lived in Vancouver since 1993, and as a senior she volunteers at her local Neighbourhood House.
After serving Abby with a significant rent increase in 2023, her landlord attempted to evict her altogether in September 2024, citing landlord personal use of the suite.
In December 2023, the landlord had pressured Abby to agree to a 46 percent rent increase. Abby compromised and accepted a 24 percent increase – well beyond the legal two per cent increase set by the province for that year.
“I feel betrayed, because I [had] a good relationship with my landlord for around 17 years. I looked after the house and took care of her dog when she went on holiday every year,” Abby says in an interview. “I thought that we are friends, but now she’s angry at me and doesn’t talk to me, [she] won’t look at me at all, but I still really want to find a solution that [will] work for both of us.”
Without family or relatives living nearby, Abby has felt from time to time socially isolated while living in Vancouver. Since the eviction notice, Abby has drifted in and out of states of depression, anxiety, and despair; how could it be that her landlord, with whom she had a solid relationship for 17 years, now wants to evict her?
46% rent increase to 24% rent increase to eviction
Since receiving the notice of eviction, Abby has been working with the Vancouver Tenants Union with the explicit goal of remaining in her home. Leaving, as Abby says, “is not an option.” The Mainlander spoke with Abby a week ahead of her supreme court hearing, where she plans to challenge a recent Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) decision that ruled in favour of her landlord.
The landlord’s rationale for the 46 per cent rent hike was simply that Abby was paying below the market rate of rent for the area. After agreeing to pay 24 per cent more, her rent jumped from $988 to roughly $1,225 per month. Despite agreeing to a steep rent increase, her landlord went silent, unsatisfied with not having received the larger rent increase. Following the negotiation, whenever Abby wanted to communicate with her landlord, the landlord insisted that Abby go through her lawyer. In this period, her landlord asked that Abby stop using the dryer in her suite as a cost-cutting measure.
In November 2024, Abby went to the RTB to dispute her eviction as her landlord shared inconsistent reasons for her supposed need to occupy the unit. Initially, the landlord stated that she intended to use the unit to house a relative moving to Vancouver from Hong Kong. However during the arbitration, the landlord’s lawyer cited the need for the landlord to occupy the ground-floor unit due to a foot injury. The landlord currently lives on the second floor of the building.
For Abby, eviction on the basis of a foot injury does not align with what she witnesses: “I see [my landlord] walking her dog every day, going to dance classes frequently. So it doesn’t make sense to me. She even mows her lawn manually.”
Abby’s mental and physical disabilities have made moving a particularly difficult ordeal for her. Affected by chronic pain and fatigue, Abby has difficulty finding housing that fits within her budget as a long-term disability recipient. In her old age, she has found that living close to her doctor, pharmacist, and physiotherapist has been a lifeline as she can’t travel too far for her appointments. This, on top of the fact that she loves her neighbourhood, has made the thought of having to leave through no fault of her own particularly distressing. Rising homelessness amongst seniors has become a concerning trend in Vancouver, and can be attributed to the lack of housing affordable for those collecting a fixed income, including those on long-term disability and the Canadian Pension Plan.
Landlord Use of Property
Vancouver has been dubbed the “eviction capital” of Canada, where tenants are evicted at twice the rate of renters in the Greater Toronto Area, the city with the next highest rate of evictions. In 2023, First United’s eviction mapping project surveyed 700 tenants in British Columbia and concluded that the most common reason for eviction is “landlord use.” This common no-fault eviction has become increasingly difficult to dispute at the level of the RTB. Amendments were made to the Residential Tenancy Act in July 2024 to address the prevalence of bad-faith landlord use or property evictions. These amendments include extending the length of time a unit must be occupied by the landlord or close relative and the use of an online portal to track such instances of eviction; but it is far too soon to tell if the amendments bear any weight on curbing these kinds of evictions. One glaring issue remains, that tenants can still only be compensated after their eviction through the RTB, so the fact of tenants’ displacement is not addressed. Still, there is no publicly available data offered by the RTB to give a concrete sense about how prevalent landlord use of property evictions have become.
Abby adds, “My case is not unique, there are a lot of tenants [in] my situation. We need to get together to fight and tell the public what we need. We need a place, because housing is a basic human right…and we need to tell the government we need a stronger system in place to protect tenants and not let landlords abuse loopholes in the system.”
After embarking on the campaign to resist her eviction, Abby remarks on her deep feelings of gratitude towards the membership of the Vancouver Tenants Union for supporting her. She has since taken on a leadership role, recently elected as treasurer of the union to give back to the organization.
“I feel they are really passionate, and there are a lot of good people there.”
Abby will be headed to the BC supreme court on Thursday, January 30, 2025, and hopes that supporters will pack the court for her hearing. On January 29, 2025, the Vancouver Tenants Union will host a community meal in support of Abby at 5175 Dumfries Street from 6–9pm. All supporters are encouraged to attend. Please RSVP for dinner here.