Special Needs of the Mentally Ill and Overview - Week 10 Discussion

Background: Read a submission by the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office (PPAO) to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing prior to third reading of Bill 109, the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. Although Bill 109 has now been enacted the submissions are still relevant. The PPAO is an organization within the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care that ensures that the rights of those with mental illness are not being abused. A psychiatric patient may be admitted involuntarily to a hospital by a doctor. Often the patient is brought to the hospital by the police after some incident. The patient can then challenge the involuntary admission. The PPAO, through rights advisers, ensures that the patient will have legal representation. One concern will be that the patient may have no place to live, particularly if the incident leading to the admission was an act of violence in the patient’s previous residence.

Note: Postings are due by the beginning of class in Week 12.

Discussion Questions:
1. Identify 3 or 4 of the key recommendations regarding Bill 109. What are the special needs of psychiatric patients that support these recommendations?

2. Do you agree or disagree with these recommendations? Give your reasons.

3. In your opinion, do the special needs of psychiatric patients justify amendments to the law that will impact all tenants or landlords in the province? What alternative legislative approach could be followed?


“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.”  Rita Mae Brown

Rent Control and Affordability - Week 8 Discussion

Please read the article “Rent Controls in Ontario” which deals with rent control myths from the tenants’ perspective and an excerpt from “The Affordability of Housing in Ontario” by Vincent Brescia, President of the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario, which argues from the landlords’ side that rent controls should be eliminated in favour of income supplements and government policies favouring development.

Note: the deadline for posting for this discussion is the start of class in Week 10.

Questions:

1. Do rent controls help or hurt tenants? For example, landlords will argue that rent controls are a disincentive to build new units or to maintain existing units?

2. Does vacancy decontrol (removing controls when renting to new tenants) create an affordability problem for tenants (they cannot afford to move) and create an incentive for landlords to evict tenants?

3. Should landlords have to justify any increase? Under the present system landlords can get an automatic increase every year, although at a prescribed rate, even if they do not need it.

Landlords' Concerns - Week 4 Discussion

Read the presentations by the Kingston Rental Property Owners Association and the Multiple Dwelling Standards Association. Keep in mind the political perspective of the presenters and be aware that the statistical information presented is debatable.

These presentations were made before the enactment of the Residential Tenancies Act. However, their concerns would still mostly be the same.

Also read the article “System Gives Tenants a Free Ride” by Tom Condon. Although an American article, it is representative of the attitude of many landlords.

Finally, consider the proposed legislation discussed in an editorial by Paul Rutherford, “Time to Get Serious About Bad Tenants”, published in the London Free Press on August 1, 2008.

Note: the deadline for posting for this discussion is the start of class in Week 6.


Questions:

1. Do you agree or disagree with the various landlord complaints presented?

2. Focus on at least 2 or 3 complaints and give your reasons in agreement or disagreement with the presenters.

3. Is the problem of “professional tenants” significant in Ontario, in your opinion?

4. What are some tenant horror-stories that you have heard?

5. Landlords exchange information about so-called bad tenants. See for example, http://bad-tenant.org/ What do think of this practice?

Homelessness - Week 2 Discussion

Read the articles: “Focus on Homelessness” from the Parkdale Community Legal Clinic, “The True Cost of Homelessness” by Gordon Laird and “Hidden Homelessness” from Raising the Roof. All postings must be made prior to the start of class in Week 4 to be considered for credit.

Questions:

1. Is homelessness a real problem?

2. If real, what are the solutions, particularly those within the scope of landlord and tenant law?

3. Do any of the suggestions in the “Hidden Homelessness” article appeal to you? In particular, would easing the restrictions on basement apartments help the homeless? These restrictions include the owner occupier exemption in the RTA and municipal zoning restrictions. Is the concern to protect tenants from substandard accommodation or to keep “those people” out of suburbia?

4. Who are the homeless? Lazy people who should get a job? Unfortunate victims of events beyond their control?

5. What is the role of charity? May charity sometimes create an illusion of action? Consider the following. During the winter, I volunteer at a homeless shelter in Newmarket, called Inn From the Cold. Several municipal politicians are also volunteers. I believe what I am doing is worthwhile but I wonder whether this is a real solution. The shelter is only open on Thursdays to Mondays from December to the end of March. It does open on other days if the temperature goes below -15 degrees. I am hoping that this year it will be open 7 days a week but it will still not be open all year. In the end, it remains a shelter, not a home.


Joke:

Bay Street Lawyer: “Knock knock.”

Homeless Woman: “What’s that noise?”


Food For Thought

“What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?What do you feel when you look in the mirror?Are you proud?” ~ Alecia Moore, a.k.a. Pink from “Dear Mr. President”

“How can we pay for the homeless when it is costing us $720 million a day just to kill people in Iraq.”~ what Dick Cheney might have said

“Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them... he cried, ‘Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?’ God said, ‘I did do something. I made you.’” ~ Hippy Chick

"No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."~ Edmund Burke

“Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.