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RRAP funds used to evict tenants

It may be a cold and bitter New
Year’s eve for six Kitsilano tenants
if their fast buck landlord succeeds
in his plot to use public funds and
Socred legislation to drive them
from their run down apartments
and “renovate’’ them into luxury
rent suites.

But due to the resistance of the
tenants, with the assistance of the
Kitsilano Tenants’ Association, the
landlord’s scheme has _ instead
drawn attention to the misuse of
the federal government’s
Residential Rehabilitation
Assistance Program (RRAP). and
the injustice of the new provincial
Residential Tenancies Act.

Landlord Yen Yoy Enterprises
has issued eviction notices for the
tenants at 2020 Vine Street in
Vancouver that.would have the low
income tenants vacate on
December 31. The eviction notice is
illegal, but the rent increases
ranging from 116 percent to 167
percent, effective January 1, 1978,
are allowable under the terms of
the Socred Residential Tenancies
Act.

The eviction notice is ostensibly
because of a fire marshal’s order
for Yen Hoy to bring his building
up to fire safety standards,
although the $25,000 in needed
repairs do not require eviction.

Yen Hoy has been under orders
to make repairs for about two
years, but it was only recently that
he decided to do something about it
— when he discovered that he
could cash in on the federal RRAP
program, and then charge the
costs of renovations to the tenants.

The RRAP program is_ sup-

Eileen Coristine stands at the entrance to the run-down tenement
building at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Vine in Vancouver. The
landlord wants her to pay $295 for her room — more than double her

previous rent of $135.

posedly designed to assist
homeowners to make repairs and
upgrade their homes. A
homeowner can receive a loan of
up to $10,000 at about 11 percent
interest for basic repairs. But an
additional feature of the program
allows a landlord to get $10,000 per
unit, on special easy terms.

Education tax burden
shifted to homeowner

Local taxpayers will pay more
for education in B.C. next year,
with last week’s announcement by
education minister Pat McGeer
that another ‘“‘five mills’ of school
tax will be added to property taxes.

McGeer said last Thursday that
the 1978 basic mill rate will rise
from 37.5 mills to 42.5 mills.

B.C. Teachers’ Federation
president Pat Brady protested the
increase last Friday, charging that
the provincial government wants
more and more control over
education, but is paying less and
less of its share of education costs.

Brady pointed out that 1976
McMath Commission report on

assessment and taxation recom-.

Rankin column on page 7

mended that the provincial
government pick up 75 percent of
public school costs within five
years.

“Instead the ministry proposes
to reduce the share paid out of
general revenue to about 37 per-
cent from the present 42.5 per-
cent,’ said Brady, ‘Since the
present government took over
we’ve seen a 60 percent increase in
the basic school mill rate levied on
the local property owners. This
government is moving quickly in
reverse. The 1975 basic levy was
26.5 mills.”’

Education benefits all of society
and it is not fair to expect property
owners to bear in ever-increasing
share of the cost, the teachers’
president said.

Yen Hoy applied for and

received $100,000 in RRAP funds. ‘

The Central Mortgage and Housing
Corporation gave him the money at
eight percent interest, with $37,500
of it as an outright grant. The
landlord added $60,000 of his own
money, made plans for $160,000
worth of renovations and then
issued rent increases to the
tenants.

The tenants thought they were
protected by the seven percent
allowable rent increase, effective
May 1, 1977. But according to
section 67 of the new Socred lan-
dlord and tenant act, the costs of
renovations can be charged to
tenants at a rate of 12 percent per
year. The charge becomes an
integral part of the rent and sub-
ject to all future increases.

Yen Hoy had no intention of
passing on CMHC’s generosity to
his tenants. He immediately made
use of the provincial law to pass on
the cost of renovations to the
tenants instead, with disastrous
results.

Eileen Coristine is typical of the
tenants in the old building. She is a
student with a part time job who
stays at 2020 Vine because of the
low rent — $135 for a bachelor
apartment. Her rent has been
raised to $295 per month, although
her eviction notice for December
31 is still pending.

The other tenants will be hit
equally as hard. Only one works
full time, as a teller in a bank. Two
others are students and two are
unemployed. None of them can
afford the $300 plus rents, and that
is why Yen Hoy wants them out.

“Three of us moved in August
1st, but there was no mention of
any of this,” Coristine told the
Tribune this week, ‘“‘But he (Yen
Hoy) must have had his plans well
advanced by then.

“T don’t think any of us have a
place to go. We’ll never find a place
we can afford in this neigh-
borhood.”’

The tenants received their rent
increases in late September, and
soon after got in touch with the
Kitsilano Tenants’ Association.
The Tenants’ Association advised
them to hold off, and fight the issue
when the eviction notices — which
they were sure would follow —
came.

True toform, Yen Hoy issued the
Notices of Termination, but his
greed pushed him past the legal
limits. The law permits evictions
for major renovations but requires
the landlord to give 120 days notice
and pay up to $300 compensation to
the tenants. If the landlord had
followed the procedure, the tenants
would have had little recourse. But
instead Yen Hoy gave only 30 days
notice, using the fire marshal’s
notice as justification.

Last week the Kitsilano Tenants’
Association took. the case to
Vancouver city council’s com-
mittee on community services,
chaired by alderman Harry
Rankin. Rankin and some other
aldermen were outraged at the
misuse of the RRAP program to
force tenants on to the street and
eliminate moderately priced
housing.

The committee agreed to send an
alderman, the fire marshal and the
city’s RRAP administrator to the
Rentalsman’s hearing on the
evictions. They also agreed to
arrange a meeting betwee the city,
RRAP administrators and CMHC
to discuss the misuse of the
program by landlords.

“RRAP was designed to upgrade
substandard housing for low-
income people, not to enable
landlords to turn worn out
premises into luxury revenue
properties,’’ KTA spokesman Paul
Lawrence said to Rankin and the
community services committee,
“Note that the loan is funded by the
taxpaper and paid back by the
tenants who are taxpayers, while
the landlord benefits from low
interest, ‘forgiveness’ and an
increase in the value of his

property. So far as we are con-
cerned, that qualifies as a rip off.”

Rankin’s committee agreed with
Lawrence and will assist the KTA
in having the Notices of Ter-
mination quashed before the
Rentalsman. They are illegal, in ~
any event.

Neither will the rent increases
take effect immediately. The Rent
Review Commission will be forced
to nullify the increases because
Yen Hoy hasn’t yet spent any
money on renovations, not even the
$25,000 to bring the building up to
fire safety standards.

The tenants are likely, then, to
win a respite, and at least spend
Christmas and New Years with a
roof over their heads. And because
the landlord can’t maké major
renovations with them in the
building, and he can’t get them out
unless he follows legal procedures,
they are likely- to get 120 days
notice and some compensation for
moving costs.

The real victory, however, is still
to be fought for. That battle will
begin when Harry Rankin and
CMHC sit down to discuss the
misuse of RRAP funds. But it’s not
going to be won until a new lan-
dlord and tenant act gives real
protection to tenants, regardless of
the handouts given to landlords.

System omits
Native needs

B.C.’s education system is not
meeting the needs of native and
low income students in the north-
west of the province, the British
Columbia Teachers’ Federation:
charged last week.

Doug McLeod, president of the
Hazelton Local of the BCTF, called
on the provincial government to
provide additional teachers for the
Hazelton area to reduce class sizes
and provide individual students
with more attention. He also called
for the development of a
curriculum which reflects the life
style and culture of the students.

Students in the northwest are
different from others in the
province, said McLeod, because of
the poverty in the area and the
predominance of Native students
who often speak English only as 2
second language and have’ dif-
ferent cultural backgrounds.

The teachers’ organization at
Hazelton has outlined a number of.
proposals to improve education
standards in the region. In one way
or another, however, each involves

‘the expenditure of more govern-

ment monies for education.

he ink was scarcely dry on our comment last week about
the actions of B.C. Telephone’s sister company in the
Dominican Republic when we received through the-mail an
intriguing bit of correspondence relating to B.C. Tel’s ac-
tions on its home ground. The source enclosed a photostat
letter from the mayor of Chilliwack, William G. Simpson, to

Gordon MacFarlane, chairman and chief executive officer

of B.C. Telephone Company.

In the letter, dated Sept. 29, 1977, mayor Simpson thanked
MacFarlane for keeping him informed “re your labor
negotiations’, and added, ‘“‘At last we are beginning to
present a solid front.

“T do hope that you stand on the courage of your con-
victions and insist that you are the boss and will purchase
material and services from sources that give you the best
deal,”’ he continued. ;

“The contracting-out clause is a demand made upon
municipalities too and we can only continue to resist as long
as large corporations such as yours do likewise. The
general public, I think, are prepared to suffer a little now
rather than face a disaster a few years hence.”

Although we can only speculate as to the opinions that
MacFarlane offered in his letter, the corespondence make
one thing clear: B.C. Tel’s adamant stance in demanding
changes to the contracting-out clause had nothing to do with
getting goods and services “at competitive prices” as
company propaganda would have it, but was aimed at

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 9, 1977—Page 2

PEOPLE AND ISSUES

undermining what security the Telecommunications
Workers Union has been able to maintain.

From the beginning, B.C. Tel has wanted to farm jobs out
at the expense of union employees. It still wants that. And
even before it provoked the current strike, it was seeking
the backing of right wing municipal governments in a
concerted attack on job security.

* * *

rom Karl Zuker comes a press release announcing the

formation of a new society — and a request for the
assistance of readers who may be able to assist in the
society’s inaugural project.

The new organization is the Municipal History Society
and under the guidance of president Harold Pritchett and
secretary Zuker, it intends to prepare a history of
municipal politics in the Lower Mainland. The Society,
made up of retired pensioners who have been active in
community organizations over the years, is funded by a
New Horizons grant under Health and Welfare Canada and
has engaged the services of labor journalist and historian
Ben Swankey as consultant and researcher.

Central to the history will be a study of the influence of
community organizations on municipal policy and the role
played by labor in municipal politics.

How can readers help? ‘‘We would like to see the minutes

and records of ratepayer and other groups, many of which ©
are no longer in existence,” Zuker explains. ‘‘We’re in-
terested in letters, briefs, photos, newspaper clippings —
anything that will provide information about issues, people
and activities. We want to go back as far as we can, right to
the origin of all the municipalities in the Lower Mainland.” -

He adds his assurances that all materials turned over to
the Society will be carefully preserved and returned to the
owners. Credit will also be given in the history to those who
supplied information and documents.

Anyone who can assist with material should send it to
Karl Zuker, secretary, Municipal History Society, 2809 Wall
Street, Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1B1. For further information
contact Karl Zuker at 254-7678 or Ben Swankey at 433-8323,
in Vancouver.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN

Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L_ 3X9 Phone 251-1186

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