Toronto rental housing puts pressure on Black renters

Toronto’s rental crisis has gone from being a worrisome situation to become a nightmare for most renters and it has been even more difficult for people of color to find a place to live in Toronto. The current landlord’s market in Toronto is a great disadvantage in particular of Black renters.

In the beginning of her journey to look for a place to reside in Toronto, it never dawned on Temi Marie, a 26-year old professional of Nigerian descent, that six months later she will still be out in the cold without a place to rent.
She stated that she has been residing in different places temporarily but she is now virtually homeless as she is still without a place to live in.
The Toronto rental sphere has become a well known environment for Marie, who has become familiar with the positive and negative aspects from dishonest landlords to renters running out of money to adjust to the increasing cost of renting.

Furthermore, renters in the city also faced the trouble between joggling the current month’s rent and the previous unpaid one and also finding the perfect rental unit online but disappointedly discover that the units have already been rented.
But for people of color such as Marie, they go through more challenging draw backs including discrimination, with numerous landlords demanding for countless interviews; receive higher rental cost in addition to demands for various criminal records check and other requirements.

Nevertheless, this whole situation is not something new to Marie who has navigated a lot in the Toronto rental market.
Housing segregation in Toronto has been a common trend over the years but things are getting tougher as the city’s housing bubbles continues to grow without control and Black and South Asian renters are feeling the pinch more than their white counterparts.
Housing segregation has been a great problem in Toronto which has left many people homeless especially single mothers and their children.
According to a report from the Center for Equality Rights in Accommodation, a non-profit organization aimed at enhancing human right in the housing market shows that close to one in four Black single parents disclose that they have gone through some sort of “severe discrimination” when looking for a place to reside.
In addition, South Asian men have also been known to go through countless racial discrimination in the rental market.
Horace Dockery, a Toronto real estate markets says landlords conduct illegal screening processes by requesting for ID with rental applications which should not be done. A landlord should not refuse to accept a renter based on racial facts.
In some areas, Black renters are considered as a threat and with the current housing squeeze, landlords get to run the show and decide who they prefer to give their apartments to.
However, although there are various laws in Ontario that protect against housing discrimination, it is in most cases very difficult to track down because a lot these situations are not reported.