
Ricardo Tranjan works at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He’s spent quite a bit of time there focussing on employment and poverty, but at the beginning of COVID, his sights shifted to housing. His book, The Tenant Class, is one result of the shift.
Tranjan starts his book off by challenging the idea that there is a housing crisis. Yes, there are lots of people who are homeless. And yes, there are lots of people who are paying rents that far exceed the accepted standard of 30% of gross income. And there’s no housing crisis? How can these three things be true?
Tranjan says that the way the housing crisis is framed means that it can’t be fixed. In Canada, the crisis is framed as a problem of affordability and incomes. Landlords and the profits they make don’t come into the picture at all. There is evidence that rents are going up far faster than incomes, but somehow we forget to investigate what’s behind the rises in rents and what can be done to control them.
The book investigates some reasons why skyrocketing rents and landlord profits aren’t part of the political debate. Tranjan exposes some ideas about tenants that pervade Canadian culture. For example, the idea that people who rent don’t work is just that, an idea. The employment rate for renters is 64% and for owners it’s 66%. Tranjan contends ideas like these cast tenants in an unfavourable light and therefore not deserving of rights enjoyed by homeowners.
The book also contains a chapter about landlords and profits. Here again, there are ideas that pervade Canadian culture that don’t hold up on close examination. For example, there is an idea that most landlords are renting a small number of units. When the idea that rents should be regulated gets put forward, there is a great hew and cry that we are putting these small operators at risk. The facts are a little different. There are small operators, but they don’t own nearly as many rental units as we are led to believe. There are also businesses that own thousands of homes and these are the homes where rents have been rising at rates well above inflation.
So governments are tinkering. The programs and funding aren’t going to make housing more affordable for renters. Tranjan encourages us to consider community action. He discusses community campaigns in Canada to improve housing conditions.
If all this is news to you, you probably aren’t alone. These issues are worth reading about and acting on. Tenants and people who are homeless don’t need the kind of help they get from politicians. They need housing that is decent and affordable.
To learn more about the book, try this podcast at On The Way Home: The Tenant Class With Author Ricardo Tranjan
If you live in Toronto, you can put your name on a waiting list to read one of the 16 copies of The Tenant Class purchased by the Toronto Public Library.
Here too is information about how to buy the book from the publisher Between the Lines: The Tenant Class