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submitted 4 days ago by eezeebee@lemmy.ca to c/ontario@lemmy.ca

"But we also think that the responsibility for the safety of [low-income people] — and let's face it, it's low-income people who have this problem — that's a responsibility for society at large, for everyone, not just for the people who happen to own the buildings where these people make their homes."

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[-] noxypaws@pawb.social 57 points 4 days ago

if a landlord can't afford to install air conditioning where air conditioning is required, they should be forced to sell any and all properties that don't comply.

actually, hold on, let me fix that for me:

landlords should be forced to sell any and all properties except the one they live in. period.

[-] WhyIAughta@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

The media loves to have us hate on private landlords, blaming them for the housing bubble and supply issue while it’s partly true it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the scummy rental corporations who have been buying up single family homes and renting them out en masse.

The small landlord that has 1 or 2 rental properties will eventually die and their properties will be liquidated, the companies however will hold onto these properties forever.

[-] masterspace@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

America is not the only place in the world. In places without mass corporate landlords, private landlords happily fill that void and are absolutely still the problem.

Show me a landlord that genuinely finds efficiencies that arent just 'hire a cheaper contractor than they would hire for their own home'.

[-] WhyIAughta@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

This is about Ontario Canada.

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[-] useyourmainfinger@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Absolutely correct, same principle applies to lots of other areas too. Such as food supply.

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[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago

As a renter who just recently bought, im almost upset this isn't comimg fast enough after years in 30+ temperatures in the summer. However I do have 1 small complaint about how they intend to implement it.

"[Those buildings] are not very viable economic propositions," he said. "And it's society that has imposed that on the property owner. And now, at least in our view, it should be for society to help solve the problem that society has created

This qoute is in the context of an old building trying to be sold instead of the landlord updating. We've fucking catered to landlords enough in this province. We don't need to bail them out. If they can't sell a property because of a condition it is in, thats their fault for maintaining it at that level. If no one will buy the property because the rent to price ratio is too high, then i guess they'll have to lower their asking price. Our province has bigger financial problems to tackle than helping landlords sell their neglected buildings or helping landlords bring them up to modern standards. Those risks and responsibilities should be on the landlord who has been profiting this entire time.

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 days ago

that’s a responsibility for society at large

You're right, let's nationalize your properties.

[-] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca -3 points 1 day ago

Wrong country. If you want communism you gotta move to one of those super successful countries like North Korea. Good luck with that.

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Yep, there's the way things are happening now, and nothing else. Any other way of doing things is impossible.

Like how every mature democracy is veering toward fascism and there's not a damn thing we could have done differently.

[-] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Well 'nationalizing' private property isn't exactly 'another way of doing things' it would be a complete makeover of our society's core values and very unlikely to happen with the consent of the owners of that property. So unless you're proposing forced compliance and starting a revolutionary war, how exactly would we "nationalize" trillions of dollars worth of private property?

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Right, Canada's never nationalized anything private, aside from rail networks, hydroelectricity, and mining operations. All cheap and cheerful. And when has a government ever managed housing?

Doing anything about rent would surely require the blood of millions.

[-] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

So you think buying a railway network is the same as buying single family houses from MILLIONS of Canadians, some of whom, like me, live in them or actually built them ourselves? Ok then, good luck with that brilliant plan. Im sure there will be no pushback on that idea.

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I think you can figure out the difference between your housing situation and rental.

... oh, I just skimmed your comment history. Fuck off.

[-] flandish@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

running any business comes with risk. “help” should go to the tenant before the business. if a landlord cant afford a business then they should quit and get a normal job instead of being a piece of shit human.

landlords should not exist, to begin with. they are garbage people.

[-] Mugmoor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago

landlords should not exist, to begin with. they are garbage people.

This. Landlords are simply unnatural. An abomination of nature itself.

Landlords are not philanthropists. You are not going to find a big group of homeowners who want to rent at a loss out of the goodness of their own hearts.

I would love if the government took strong measures to encourage home ownership and discourage treating real estate as an investment. Really, I would. But that will take many years of hard work and economics PhDs to concoct a plan that works. So, until we find a government with the balls to do that for real, we have to understand that dealing with landlords in a realistic way is a necessary evil.

Because if you nuke rentals without first ensuring people can afford to buy, all you'll accomplish is to create a mass housing shortage worse than you've ever seen.

[-] blarghly@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Saying you want real estate to not be treated like an investment is a pipe dream. It is the most expensive purchase most people will ever make - looking at it without a financial lense is a terrible idea!

Fortunately, what you want has a straightforward solution, and requires few if any economics phds. Because an economist already solved the problem a long time ago. Henry George noted that landlords provided a valuable service to people by building and maintaining housing - but that the value of the land that their building was built on (which made up the bulk of the reason people were willing to pay their rent) was made by the community. A 300 sqft studio in Boston rents for more than a 2000sqft house in bumfuck Nebraska because it is in Boston. The public infrastructure, the businesses, the other peoples homes, the parks, the universities - all these things contribute to the value of that studio in a way the landlord had nothing to do with.

The land itself has value depending on where it is, and we should not let landlords capture this value. Instead, it should be returned to the community, which is the source of the value in the first place. Hence, George proposed issueing a tax on land values, such that landlords would be unable to profit on the value of land itself. Instead, they would be required to earn value from the land by building and maintaining something of worth on it. And when something of worth is built, this improves the community further!

I highly recommend looking into Georgism.

[-] masterspace@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago

This is the first time I've ever actually intentionally saved a comment on Lemmy or Reddit.

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[-] flandish@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

House ownership should be a right not an investment.

I agree! However, it will take a lot of time and carefully crafted policy to make that happen, without perverse incentives appearing. In the meantime, we have to live in the real world and deal with landlords as a (hopefully temporary) fact of life.

[-] socialsecurity@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago

we have to understand that dealing with landlords in a realistic way is a necessary evil.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore

What is this supposed to prove?

[-] socialsecurity@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

That we don't in fact have to deal with the parasites to have housing avaliable for working people

So do we just... fuck over all the renters living in landlord-owned units for the next 5-20 years while this cool new mass public housing is being built by all those extra construction workers we definitely don't have a shortage of?

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[-] untorquer@lemmy.world 26 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Landlord brain: Charge the city then raise the rent due to increased value.

[-] n3m37h@sh.itjust.works 22 points 4 days ago

We need to get rid of the 'grandfathering' law. We have standards but existing building can be exempted. A majority of ontario houses would never meet code because of this BS.

My current slum lord is one of those investment landlords who promise the world but refuse to do any maintenance or bare minimum if required by the law.

Fuck invesent leeches and outdated laws

[-] socialsecurity@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago

refuse to do any maintenance or bare minimum if required by the law.

This is the business model but they also were able to reap a lot of wind fall due to rising prices for housing.

[-] n3m37h@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

This should be fucking illegal instead of status quo.

And investing is like gambling, you do it wrong and ya loose. But in todays society we say no, they always win and everyone else can get fucked. Sick and tired of that bullshit

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[-] Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 6 points 3 days ago

Landleach tears are delicious.

[-] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 days ago

Gosh yes. The landlords as victims. A novel concept.

[-] AverageGoob@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

I am shocked we don't have this already with new record temperatures every year. 26 is a perfectly reasonable temperature as a MAX and boohoo landlords who would rather leave people live in life threatening heat.

[-] NotSteve_@piefed.ca 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yeah well they can go fuck themselves

[-] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 days ago

Ya sure. We are low income and our low income shit building charges $250 cdn per air conditioner per season. Like they are going to put airco in. Fucking pipe dream.

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

My landlord wanted at least an additonal $100 per month if i were to install a window shaker.

[-] masterspace@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

No they don't. They've been profiting off of doing no work for decades. They can sell their cottage if that's what it takes for their tenants to have a single reasonable home.

[-] YummyEntropy@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

Well, if there was one thing Mao did right...

[-] LoveCanada@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago

An air conditioner unit for a single room is as cheap as $140 brand new at Walmart and often used they're just $40 on marketplace. But the tenant pays the power bill. Sure I'll buy you a couple, not exactly a big deal, its your power bill.

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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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