Law Reform is an essential part of our Systems Change work to change structures and systems that keep people marginalized. We focus on provincial law reform to reduce evictions, increase tenant protections, and prevent homelessness.
Our law reform platform includes a wide array of recommendations that approve conditions for tenants across the province. We’re currently advocating for vacancy control, the right to adequate cooling for tenants, prohibiting no pet clauses, and improving procedural fairness.
Residential Tenancy Act Law Reform Platform
“Everyone Needs a Home: Solutions for Preventing Homelessness, Evictions, and Displacement” is our law reform platform that provides evidence-based recommendations drawing on research and statistical analysis, case law, legislation from multiple Canadian jurisdictions, Residential Tenancy Branch datasets, and the BC Eviction Mapping dataset (which has documented the mechanisms of eviction since mid-2022) for the Residential Tenancy Act.
In BC, hundreds of thousands of households rely on both rental housing and the law to provide a basic level of protection and stability. Tenants in British Columbia have faced dramatic increases in rent paired with the highest eviction rates in the country. The impacts on our most vulnerable neighbours cannot be overstated. Homelessness, community displacement, family separation, disconnection from work and necessary services, and a host of physical and mental health impacts follow eviction.
The Residential Tenancy Act has the potential to meet these challenges, but in order to do so, it must change. It must offer a concrete response to the risks posed by the commodification of housing and profiteering. Many of the core features of the Act are decades old and do not address present realities.