Hands Off Our Homes Quinte West held a meeting at the Quinte West City Hall chambers on Tuesday.
The goal of the meeting was to get tenants involved with the fight against Bedford Properties on the same page and lay out next steps.
“I think the meeting went really well,” Shannon Lawrence of Hands Off Our Homes Quinte West tells Quinte News.
“Everybody seems to be a little more confident now to feel a little bit better about where we stand as tenants and where we’re gonna go legally from here.”
Renoviction notices have been handed out to some tenants of four Trenton apartment buildings on Sidney Street with more expected to be delivered.
Tenants who did receive notices were given N9s and N13s where they could choose to either leave the property by July 31 or take a lump sum payment of $4,000 to leave by May 31.
The night before, a meeting was held to provide free legal advice for tenants. That meeting was held by the Community Advocacy & Legal Centre.
“They just went over our rights as tenants and what landlords can and cannot legally do, on what grounds they can legally evict you and when they can’t,” Lawrence tells Quinte News.
Hands Off Our Homes Quinte West’s Kevin McQuaig and Shannon Lawrence providing the latest in the tenants’ fight against Bedford Properties. April 25, 2023. (Photo: Zach McGibbon/Quinte News)
Among those who spoke at the meeting were lawyer David Chatten and president of the Quinte Region Landlords Association Robert Gentile.
Chatten answered some questions from tenants about the situation and provided his support.
Gentile spoke about how other landlords were viewing the situation with Bedford Properties and wanted to attend the meeting to receive more clarity on the situation.
“We’ve been monitoring this story quite closely in the news for the last couple of weeks and we’re disturbed at what we’re seeing,” Gentile tells Quinte News.
“We’ve been working with local governments here in the Quinte area to encourage the development of more housing, to help with the housing crisis, the housing shortage to encourage people to become landlords. We’re not about putting people out of their homes. We’re about putting people in homes so when we hear a story like this, it’s very disturbing to us.”
Speaking to the tenants at the meeting, Gentile said that the association had also tried to reach out to Bedford Properties but had also not received any response.
President of the Quinte Region Landlords Association, Robert Gentile, discussing how local landlords have been dealing with Bedford Properties. April 25, 2023. (Photo: Zach McGibbon/Quinte News)
“We have reached out to Bedford through various channels through the housing industry and we’ve let them know that we are here to help with this problem and are here to work with both Bedford and the affected tenants to help resolve the situation in a way that hopefully is a win win or a compromise for both sides,” Gentile said.
Quinte West city councillor Zack Card was also in attendance.
As for next steps, Lawrence outlined some of the group’s plans.
“We are making a little road trip up to Toronto to the Sterling Karamar head office because Bedford Properties all they have is a PO box,” Lawrence explained.
“So Sterling Karamar, they are Bedford by proxy, so we’re gonna go there and maybe if somebody will talk to us they can give us a contact number for somebody from Bedford Properties that maybe we can reach out to.”
Lawrence says there is also a plan to protest outside Queen’s Park next month and the group will also attend Quinte West’s next council meeting to get an update from the city and will continue their protests outside the Sidney Street apartment buildings.
