Lasalle\u2014On Monday, November 28, one of the tenants in the low-income seniors building at 760 Gamelin came home to find an envelope attached the door handle with an elastic band. Inside was a one-page eviction notice in French requiring the apartment to be fully vacant by the end of today (Wednesday).<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe it. It\u2019s supposed to be six or seven days before the day of departure,\u201d said Louise H\u00e9bert, the Communications Director for the Office municipal d\u2019habitation de Montreal (OMHM). She then agreed to look into the details. H\u00e9bert also confirmed that this tenant was treated in the same way any tenant would be treated in similar circumstances. \u201cWe followed the same procedure that we always use. We cannot do whatever we want in these cases. We have to follow the official procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n
If this case is typical, the OMHM uses the R\u00e9gie du logement du Quebec (the rental board) as a collection agency. Tenants are given little time to review documents or consult lawyers and can be convicted when absent. English-speaking tenants have no automatic right to be informed about the complicated process in their own language.<\/p>\n
In this case, the OMHM took a unilingual English-speaking tenant to the rental board to collect a sum of $412, which included fees in arrears of $70 plus June\u2019s rent for a total of $412. The OMHM representative also argued that the tenant had paid late four previous times and should be evicted. The tenant did not appear during the hearing, which took place on July 18. The rental board decision reflected the OMHM requests and was sent in French to both parties on July 25.<\/p>\n
On August 15, the tenant submitted a claim to the rental board to argue that the July decision should be reversed. The tenant claimed to have received no notice about the hearing date due to being on holiday from July 8 to July 24. The tenant claim included receipts for money orders made out to the OMHM on time for May, June and July\u2019s rent and documentation about a misunderstanding about a parking spot leading to a $5 rate plus a $66 late fee being incorrectly charged to the file.<\/p>\n
On October 27, the appeal was heard. This time, both parties attended with lawyers. The decision, which was rendered on November 17, upholds the July decision. The administrative judge cited a belief in the OMHM testimony that that the tenant was informed by telephone on July 12 about the hearing date six days later. He also accepted the OMHM representative\u2019s claim to have sent a written notice by post, and made it clear that such notices do not have to be registered, nor is a tenant signature required. He also questioned why the tenant waited more than fifteen days to submit a request to retract the judgement.<\/p>\n
The tenant received the four page judgement in French from the Montreal Rental Board last Thursday.<\/p>\n
Note: This article appeared in the city edition of the Suburban on November 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lasalle\u2014On Monday, November 28, one of the tenants in the low-income seniors building at 760 Gamelin came home to find an envelope attached the door handle with an elastic band. Inside was a one-page eviction notice in French requiring the apartment to be fully vacant by the end of today (Wednesday). \u201cI don\u2019t believe it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lasalleposts","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2buQs-iL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1174,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/tenant-evicted-for-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":0},"title":"Tenant Evicted For $5","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"December 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"LaSalle\u2014A bailiff handed another eviction notice directly to a tenant at the low-cost seniors\u2019 residence at 760 Gamelin last Tuesday. This time, the notice came with an English translation. \u201cEviction notices come from the bailiff, but our policy is to send a translation with the French version,\u201d said OMHM spokesperson\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1176,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/evicted-omhm-tenant-appeals-rental-boards-5-eviction\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":1},"title":"Evicted OMHM Tenant Appeals Rental Board’s $5 Eviction","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"December 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The tenant evicted from a low-income seniors building in Lasalle, and forcibly removed as we went to press last week, asked the Court of Quebec for permission to appeal Monday, thanks to the efforts of attorney David Ghavitian. \u201cIt\u2019s on the eve of the holidays and they\u2019re putting my client\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1189,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/questions-about-rights-of-low-income-tenants\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":2},"title":"OMHM versus Danny Palladini Raises Serious Questions About Rights of Low-Income Tenants","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"July 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The next hearing in the case of Montreal\u2019s municipal housing authority (OMHM) versus Daniel Palladini will take place at 9 a.m. on Monday, July 9. It happens in room 2220 of the D wing at the Quebec Rental Board main office in the Olympic Village, 5199 Sherbrooke Street East. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Island Report"","block_context":{"text":"Island Report","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/island-report\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1152,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/misunderstandingresolved\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":3},"title":"Misunderstanding between Gamelin Residents and OMHM Resolved","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"September 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"LaSalle\u2014Residents at the Seigneurie des Rapides (760 Gamelin) who are planning a corn roast on Saturday, September 3, have been frustrated by unnecessary road blocks they feel are coming from the Office municipal d\u2019habitation de Montreal (OMHM). Last week, Esther Giroux, OMHM director of social and community development, told event\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "LaSalle"","block_context":{"text":"LaSalle","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/lasalleposts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1180,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/two-more-days-scheduled-for-eviction-case-omhm-versus-daniel-palladini\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":4},"title":"Two More Days Scheduled for Eviction Case: OMHM versus Daniel Palladini","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"January 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Thirteen of the almost 200 seniors living in the Manoir Roger-Bernard low-income residence in Pierrefonds spent another day at Quebec Rental Board hearings in the Olympic Village last Thursday. They are attending hearings because the Office Municipal d\u2019Habitation de Montr\u00e9al (OMHM) is trying to evict resident Danny Palladini. Several tenants,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Island Report"","block_context":{"text":"Island Report","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/canada\/island-report\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1222,"url":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/vulnerable-tenants-evicted\/","url_meta":{"origin":1163,"position":5},"title":"Vulnerable Tenants Evicted under Questionable Circumstances","author":"Tracey Arial","date":"October 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A recent study by the Suburban discovered that the OMHM regularly tries to evict tenants for less than $300, while others owe thousands of dollars before being brought to the rental board. It\u2019s not clear why some tenants get more time to settle their debts than others, but the practice\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Journalism"","block_context":{"text":"Journalism","link":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/en\/category\/writing\/notable-nonfiction\/journalism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyarial.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}