Housing advocates press province for better data collection

Legal aid workers and researchers are calling on the province to collect and publicly release data related to the housing crisis.

Dalhousie Legal Aid Service and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives say without ready access to statistics, the full scope of Nova Scotia's housing challenges — and possible solutions — is difficult to grasp.

Joanne Hussey, a community legal worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid Service, wants to see published statistics about evictions, including how many are taking place and demographic information about those affected, such as income, gender and family status.

"If you see a big change in a short period of time, then you have to ask other questions about what else is contributing to this," Hussey said. "Because presumably it's not all just due to … behaviour or actions of an individual tenant. It's a more systemic problem."

Hussey would also like to see information shared about residential tenancy hearings, including how many applications are filed for hearings, how many hearings take place, and the outcome of those processes.

"Without that information, it makes it very difficult for organizations like ours and certainly for the government itself to be able to say, 'Wait, this might not be working the way that we would like it to be.'"

The province doesn't collect some of the information Hussey says would be useful, such as the number of fixed-term leases being signed. Fixed-term leases end on a date agreed upon by the landlord and tenant, rather than automatically being renewed.

A growing number of tenants in the Halifax area have reported being priced out of their apartments by landlords using fixed-term leases to raise rents by increases far outstripping the current cap of two per cent.

Colton LeBlanc, the minister of Service Nova Scotia, which administers the residential tenancies program, told reporters last week the province doesn't track that level of detail, and although he's heard stories through the media of the inappropriate use of fixed-term leases, he stands by the intended use of them.

Hussey said the government should know whether the use of fixed-term leases has grown since the provincial rent cap was implemented.

"Not being able to say that seems like a bit of a gap in their information in terms of being able to make good policy or make good legislation," she said.

A spokesperson for Service Nova Scotia acknowledged data collection could be improved.

"We recognize there are gaps in the information we collect," said a statement from Rachel Boomer. "Fixing them requires IT upgrades and those are underway."

Boomer said the department is modernizing its system to allow it to collect more and better data on each residential tenancies hearing and its outcome, and that it expects the upgrades to be finished in two years.