Domicide 002: What is a Demoviction anyway?

Domicide is a Toronto Compass original series of news stories and documentaries. Domicide is the murder of housing as a shelter and right. Instead, housing has been reborn as a financial asset, an investment for the rich to get richer at the cost of safety, dignity, and a human right.

In January 2024, the 'Federal Housing Advocate,' a non-partisan watchdog monitoring housing in Canada officially classified the process of demoviction, as practiced in a violation of human rights.

So what is the Demoviction, and how did it get this bad?

Simply put, a demoviction is when a resident of a property is evicted to make way for their unit to be demolished to create new housing. In theory, the practice is legal to allow developers to buy up lower-density lots, usually en-masse, and replace them with new higher-density housing. Because as we're all told, falsely, if developers just build more housing, our so-called housing crisis will be solved.

The trouble lies with a glaring flaw in the practice: what about the residents already there? We can keep finding empty parking lots and vacant urban fields to build towers in. Sometimes, we have to take existing residences and redevelop them.

The process of the existing resident being removed is a demoviction, and what the process entails depends on whether you ask real people, residents, and grassroots organizations or if you ask multi-billion dollar developers.

Developers will tell you all about the legal obligation they claim to follow. Websites of developers boast about relocating tenants with compassion and putting them up in units in their new buildings designed just for them. But spend 30 seconds talking to anyone fighting these events, and they share. a different story.

Let's break down what happens.

1. You, as a tenant of a property are given, often incredibly short, notice to vacate the property for demolition

2. You are entitled to a relocation. For free, to another affordable unit. Note: In demovictions victims are often long-time renters, paying much lower rents than the market average, thus qualifying for an affordable unit replacement

3. You are entitled to stay in your unit until an appropriate affordable replacement unit is found by the developer. The developer will try to get you to leave 'voluntarily' and therefore, forfeit the relocation process. Developers are known to harass tenants with phone calls and visits, conduct smear campaigns to win public favor, threaten illegitimate legal actions, neglect your unit, and even board up your windows citing unjustified "safety concerns." They do all. of this to try and get you to leave, thus forfeiting your right to compensation in the form of payout(s) or a new unit.

4. If you resist, and it will not be easy, you eventually get the promised affordable unit... right?

5. The affordable unit you are entitled to be rehoused in is often anything but. Developers are required to rehouse in a unit that is 80% of the market rate. That is the definition of affordable. This 80% of market rate is regardless of how much you were paying before and is an amount that to pay, you still need to be making around $90,000 a year.

6. If you finally get a unit and can afford the rent increase you may find yourself across town, as there is no requirement for geographic proximity to the original location, community, or workplace. Furthermore, many new 'affordable units' are made as an afterthought by developers with corners cut everywhere, so regardless of your unit before you may be cast into the basement units, the units by the dumpsters, or really any unit location the developers couldn't make profit from, so decided to put the affordable units.

7. All of this is just so a multination multi-billion dollar company can avoid having to take the shallowest of a dent in finances to help you.

Every action described above is legally allowed for developers and often encouraged through the three levels of government.

So what can be done?

A lot can be done. And a lot is being done. Organizations like https://www.nodemovictions.ca/, as well as tenants' unions and allies within the government, fight each demoviction, often gruelingly case by case, for justice. Battles are uphill but not impossible. If tenants have support to fight and continue to fight, they often end up successful.

But sadly, that fight takes time, energy, and resources. Getting allies and help takes more time and energy, as well as knowledge of Canadian systems, the law, and local groups. Developers know it is too much for many and rely on easy wins.

This is where we come in, you and I. Attend rallies for the demovicted, volunteer with the groups fighting these, divest financial ties from developers and real estate holdings, and vote.