Fundraiser to benefit SLAM work defending tenants
MONTREALERS DEALING WITH THE IMPACT OF LARGE RENT INCREASES VIA THE QUEBEC GOVERNMENT
By Irwin Rapoport
Tenants in Quebec, especially in the Greater Montreal Area, have been hard hit by the CAQ government over the last 12 months, with the latest blow in the form of the cabinet, on January 21, accepting the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL)?rent increase, the highest since 1995.
The majority of tenants have received rent increases in the past few weeks, with some being reasonable and others being excessive. This is not an easy time for those who rent, who have experienced increases due to a combination of annual property tax increases from the City of Montreal; inflation resulting from the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine; rising energy costs; and other factors.
Tenants in Quebec… have been hard hit by the CAQ government over the last 12 months, with the latest blow in the form of the cabinet, on January 21, accepting the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) rent increase, the highest since 1995.
A CTV News report, Housing groups say finding an apartment in Quebec just got a lot harder and more expensive, provides the details for the latest rent increase guidelines and highlights the concerns of the City of Montreal and tenants’ rights groups.
Ahmad Al-khatat – Image: courtesy of SLAM
On February 21, 2024, the provincial government ratified a controversial law. A CBC News report entitled No more lease transfers? Quebec has passed a new housing law. Here’s what’s in it noted: “Now, a landlord can do so for any reason — and can terminate the lease if a tenant asks to transfer it.”
The report explains lease transfers from the point of view of tenants and landlords, and the implications of the change, stating: “For housing advocates, lease transfers were a way to pass on low rents to others and ensure that landlords couldn’t hike rents between tenants.”
In Montreal, where the housing crisis is pricing some tenants out of the market for an apartment, a one-bedroom apartment now costs an average of $1,744 per month, according to rentals.ca.
Lease transfers, by comparison, are generally lower and can come in below $1,000, often for apartments where leases have been passed from tenant to tenant for years, sometimes decades, keeping rents frozen in the past, in a sense.
Montreal, in response to the rent increase guidelines, has warned tenants to not move unless it is necessary.
Housing advocates have sounded the alarm and are fighting back as best they can, providing advice to tenants on topics such as rent increases and renovictions. Montreal, in response to the rent increase guidelines, has warned tenants to not move unless it is necessary.
On March 6 a fundraiser to benefit the Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union or Syndicat des locataries autonomes de Montreal (SLAM-MATU) is being held at Bar Milton-Parc, 3417 Ave du Parc at 7 pm.
Alex Sadeum – Image: courtesy of SLAM
“A dozen of Montreal’s hottest poets will read work about housing justice, tenants’ rights, landlords, evictions, home affordability, rent increases, etc.,” states the notice for the event that is being organized by Norman Nawrocki, a well-known Montreal novelist, playwright,? poet, and musician. “It’s a PWYC night. Suggested donation: $5 to $20.”
The poets include: Ahmad Al-khatat,? Laura Doyle Péan, Alex Sadeum, Bryan Sentes, Darby Minott Bradford,??Deanna Radford, George Slobodzian, Kelly Norah Drukker, Marilou Craft, Norman Nawrocki and more. Ambient music is provided by Ianna Book.
For more information on the event, visit facebook.com/events
SLAM-MATU employs direct action to fight landlords. “If fighting back against our housing conditions interests you, join our Montreal-wide union. We’re a non-hierarchical collective of tenants involved in eviction defence, unionizing buildings, tenant-led direct action, and unhoused solidarity. Every tenant needs a union!”
We believe in solidarity, mutual aid, community organizing, and direct action. These strategies allow us to fight for lower rents, to stop evictions or harassment, and to improve the conditions in our buildings.
– SLAM-MATU
SLAM-MATU replied to a few questions about the group and its mandate.
WM: Can you explain a bit about who your union is and what you do? SLAM: Our union is a network of tenants. We help each other fight landlords. We use a model of combative action. This includes marches and picket lines in front of landlords’ offices and homes, banner installations, and petitions, we’ve won hundreds and thousands of dollars for ourselves and other tenants of different kinds of landlords.
Deanna Radford – Image: courtesy of SLAM
We believe in solidarity, mutual aid, community organizing, and direct action. These strategies allow us to fight for lower rents, to stop evictions or harassment, and to improve the conditions in our buildings. We train each other to become organizers who can autonomously build tenants’ unions between neighbours in our buildings and on our streets.
It’s worth noting that we also believe that this solidarity can develop into class solidarity, deep-felt unity among each other as exploited people, and that direct action can develop into mass action, the ability to perform seriously disruptive acts. With these tools, we don’t only build towards a rapport de force with our landlords, but build power against capitalism, the state, and all forms of exploitation and oppression, in favour of our alternative, neighbourhood autonomy.
WM: How are you responding to this year’s rent increase?
SLAM: Every rent increase season, our union has launched a campaign we call “Refuse Together.” This year we have stepped it up because of our growth in membership and mobilizational power, but also because this year’s increases our ridiculous. Many members have already received increases of over 6% or 10%. The Refuse Together campaign encourages tenants to organize with their neighbours around a common goal: to refuse their landlords’ unjust rent increase and to demand a lower increase amount determined by the tenants of the building.
The goal is to build a rapport de force that we just don’t have when we’re alone up against our landlord, but that we can find through solidarity between neighbours.
– SLAM-MATU
So, we’re encouraging tenants to, first, door-knock their neighbours (or to find people who share the same landlord). Then, get a meeting together of tenants interested in talking about how to refuse your landlord’s increase together. Plan some collective actions, such as individually refusing at the same time, sending a petition, and escalating from there. The goal is to build a rapport de force that we just don’t have when we’re alone up against our landlord, but that we can find through solidarity between neighbours. This will allow us to negotiate downward our rent increases. Through all of this, our union can support you.
Darby Minott Bradford – Image: courtesy of SLAM
Our goal with this campaign is to show tenants that victories can be won through collective direct action and solidarity. In so doing we want to challenge the exploitation and power dynamics inherent to landlord-tenant relationships, and inherent to capitalism generally. Nobody should be profiting off of and exploiting our need for housing. Despite that, our exploitation is getting more severe and our lives are getting harder because of other people’s interests in making money off of us.
WM: Some people might be asking what the benefit is in refusing together. Can you explain this to our readers?
SLAM: We’ve seen lots of different cities use the model of tenants organizing as neighbours to fight their rent increases. Probably the most famous is Los Mariachis in Los Angeles, 2017, who have a whole chapter devoted to them in the recent book Abolish Rent. They significantly brought down their rent increase and collectively negotiated an agreement with their landlord through community support, planning protests at their landlord’s house, and a rent strike.
We don’t only have a need but a responsibility to each other to keep rent as low as possible. Without collective action from tenants, rent will continue to rise at levels that are unprecedented and flat-out unaffordable.
– SLAM-MATU
Hundreds of Toronto tenants have been using rent strikes against their increases pretty much every year since 2017, pretty much always declaring victory. In Montreal, we have a more modest tradition, but our Refuse Together campaigns in past years have led to tenants getting no increases and getting leverage to be able to negotiate down their increases with their landlord.
There is strength in numbers. Landlords benefit from isolating us and pressuring us to accept increases that aren’t right. Together, we hold the power to pressure our landlords through petitions, banner drops, marches to their offices, to their homes, and picketing their other businesses. This is what gives us bargaining power at the negotiation table.
Kelly Norah Drukker – Image: courtesy of SLAM
We don’t only have a need but a responsibility to each other to keep rent as low as possible. Without collective action from tenants, rent will continue to rise at levels that are unprecedented and flat-out unaffordable.
WM: What about going through institutions like the Housing Tribunal? Can that help tenants?
SLAM: It can help to go to the TAL (Quebec’s housing tribunal), in most cases we’ve seen tenants win decreased rent increases. It’s also extremely rare for us to see tenants get higher increases than what their landlord asked for. So, basically, with the TAL, you don’t have much to lose.
But, it’s worth noting that, in large part, it’s the TAL that has gotten us into this mess of exploding rents. Especially this year, it’s their calculation, the TAL calculation, that is allowing landlords to make absurd profits. The TAL does not operate in our interests, in fact, it determines rent increases exclusively based on a landlord’s need to maintain and increase profit from their buildings rather than a tenant’s cost of living or ability to pay.
If you scroll through their increase calculation, you won’t find anything factoring in whether or not tenants have kids, whether our expenses are going up, or whether our salary increased. Basically, there’s no consideration of what we can actually pay for that is factored into the calculation. The TAL doesn’t even consider if an increase might lead to our eviction due to nonpayment because we simply don’t have extra money. In fact, tenants don’t input anything on the TAL’s increase calculations.
SLAM supports tenants fighting against rent increases by directly pressuring landlords instead of relying on the Tribunal. We’re not afraid of the TAL, it can be useful, but we have so much more to win through our own power.
– SLAM-MATU
On the other hand, the calculation sheet, almost like a wish list, is made entirely for landlords to input their expenses, and a flexible margin for desired profit on their buildings. SLAM supports tenants fighting against rent increases by directly pressuring landlords instead of relying on the Tribunal. We’re not afraid of the TAL, it can be useful, but we have so much more to win through our own power.
WM: Is there anything else you would like to add?
SLAM: Thank you for taking the time to ask us some questions. We hope to see folks at our fundraiser on March 6 and we hope that some tenants reading this can get in touch to organize a rent increase refusal in their buildings. Solidarity with all tenants fighting back!
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of WestmountMag.ca or its publishers.
Irwin Rapoport is a freelance journalist with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Concordia University.