Affordable housing is hard to come by.
My friends and I learned this when we started looking for an off-campus rental at the end of our first year in university. We had, and still have, a tight budget.
After looking at some pretty dingy places — cramped basement apartments or shoes hanging over power lines outside — we found our current townhouse across from the South Keys Shopping Centre.
We thought we’d hit the jackpot: full kitchen, laundry, a grocery store and the O-Train across the street . . . all for the same price as the cramped basement. We took it as fast as we could.
However, the dream house we once celebrated by doing a “happy dance” around our residence room has turned into a nightmare.
A few weekends ago, a letter appeared in my mailbox. The condo board that runs the townhouse unit I live in — Carleton Condominium Corporation No 24 — passed a rule Oct. 20, stating only families will be permitted to occupy the units from now on.
After wading through four pages of legal jargon, my roommates and I came to understand that we don’t qualify as a family and therefore, we’re unable to re-sign our lease when it expires in April.
I’ve been discriminated against before, but never for being a broke university student.
The condo board has a very narrow view of what constitutes a family. My parents live in Toronto. I know many students are in the same boat, living far from their families.
My roommates have become my surrogate family: we eat meals together, we share chores, and for safety, we check in with each other if one of us is going to be out late.
And as a surrogate family, I feel like we were blindsided by the condo board. I wasn’t aware that anyone in my neighbourhood had a problem with students living there until the letter arrived.
The vote to pass this ‘single family’ rule was only open to members of the board. Owners of the units and renters weren’t allowed to vote — not that they wanted us at the meeting. A first letter informing us of the vote apparently circulated, but neither myself nor my roommates remember seeing it.
If it arrived in a blank, unaddressed envelope the way the second letter did, we probably threw it into the junk mail bin.
The second letter was only sent to the units, not to the landlords. Our landlord lives in Brampton, Ont. He only found out that our rental unit was under attack from us. The condo board didn’t ensure the owners of the units were informed of the ‘single family’ rule.
It feels like the condo board is purposely sneaking around behind our backs to make this decision. Now, they’re hoping we’ll roll over and accept it since we’re young and we’re students.
My roommates and I have never had any conflicts with our neighbours or with the condo board. In the winter, we shovel our elderly neighbour’s porch for her while she’s in Florida. We have never had a wild party or thrown shopping carts into the creek. I just want a place to live while I get my education. Most of the students who rent the other townhouses are like me.
If neighbours have an issue with a loud party, go next door, knock, and ask them to turn down the music. If the partiers refuse, call the cops and they’ll get a ticket.
The condo board should deal with the noisy houses individually. Instead, they have lumped all the students together and labelled us ‘bad.’
However, we can fight the new rule. If 15 per cent of the owners of the units appeal the rule by Nov. 21, the condo board will hold another vote. This one will be open to all the owners of the units. This means that every student who shares a townhouse unit must rally their landlords.
To the South Keys residents who are against students living in the area: I hope you change your minds — we could make good neighbours, if you’d just give us the chance.
