Beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s new provincial policies encouraged the deinstitutionalization of people with mental illness, which resulted in an increased demand for affordable housing. At the same time, the supply of affordable housing stock in Toronto diminished because of gentrification in the downtown areas (especially of rooming houses), low rental vacancy rates, and, finally, high unemployment forced many people to seek cheaper housing. Thus, as early as the 1980s, Toronto began to experience a crisis relating to the lack of affordable housing.

Rooming and boarding houses form an essential component of the housing continuum since they provide low-cost housing at the very bottom of Toronto’s housing market. For many vulnerable people (often mentally ill and not receiving treatment) the only other choice is the street. Unlike self-contained housing, rooming and boarding houses have at least one shared facility: bathroom, kitchen, or living room. Rooming houses provide accommodation only; boarding homes provide meals and care services.

In 1974 Toronto City Council passed by-laws to require owners of non-owner-occupied rooming houses with five or more tenants to obtain licenses, submit to inspections by City officials, and meet standards for fire protection and maintenance. It has been argued that this regulation has been a major factor in the significant decline of the stock; however, decline was also fueled by gentrification and other forms of urban development in the mid-1970s. Rooming houses have been regulated since 1987 by the Tenant Protection Act. From 1986 to July 1999, licensed rooming house stock has declined from about 600 homes to 389 homes. Boarding home stock has always been more limited. Of the rooming houses currently licensed in the former City of Toronto, only 60 operate as boarding homes. Currently, rooming and boarding houses are only legal within the old boundaries of the City of Toronto and Etobicoke. Most are located in Parkdale and Cabbagetown, close to the community services that rooming and boarding house tenants rely on. Neighbourhood opposition will make it difficult for existing licensing to be extended to the other four former municipalities that were amalgamated to create the new “megacity” of Toronto.

Agencies working with the homeless see other pressures further reducing the boarding and rooming house stock. The province, for example, has removed its legislation protecting rental housing, opening the way for the conversion of rooming houses to single family housing, rental apartments, or condominiums. And the removal of rent controls has permitted rents to escalate. The typical monthly rent for a decent room in a rooming house in Toronto has gone from $425 to $500 over the last two years, well above what people on social incomes are able to pay. Changing municipal taxation policy may quadruple the taxes for larger rooming houses, thereby raising rents; and the evolution and enforcement of municipal standards for rooming and boarding houses may also raise owner’s costs. Some owners and operators are now reaching retirement age and are looking to sell their properties and/or the business.

Trends in the banking and insurance businesses are also increasing the costs of operating boarding and rooming homes. Trust companies, the usual mortgagor of the houses, are being absorbed by the major banks, who subsequently withdraw from this line of investment. Rooming house owners are forced to seek private or offshore investors for mortgage financing at significantly higher interest rates. Insurance companies are also scrutinizing the boarding home business, and charging higher premiums.

The housing market is becoming tighter. In the private sector it is easier to increase rents, forcing those who could afford previously to live in self-contained apartments to move into rooming or boarding homes. Landlords of rooming and boarding homes have become more selective in choosing their tenants, and current tenants are being forced out and into substandard housing or onto the street.

The City of Toronto must develop strategies to prevent the loss of valuable rooming and boarding house stock and to encourage new investors into the sector.

Alison Guyton