If I may venture an opinion here. Any money we could raise as tenant for
lobbying politicians would dwarf funding options by landlords. It would be
a real David vs Goliath battle. The amount of money that Starlight is
looking to extract from our building alone (340 The East Mall) which has 77
units would be assuming 74 occupied at $1300 per month average is $96200
per month. Multiply this by 36 for the 3 year AGI and we have $3,463,200 x
0.03% = $103,896 additional income from one building over 3 years and we
see 94 makeovers on the list. If we assume that ours is and average sized
building and project these numbers we are looking at $9,766,224 over 3
years and if they do the same thing to the balance of the 244 buildings we
would have $25,350,624. This is play money for these venture capitalists.
If we are going to challenge them,
a fund of one million dollars in the lobby arena we are definitely lost.
The direction for a successful challenge was demonstrated by Al Anvari who
took on a Swedish giant applying the same tactics as Capreit and Starlight
use with management companies like Metcap. He used social media and I think
the first objective should be to acquire a media wizard if this arena.
On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 3:14 PM, John .plumadore <john.plumadore@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:
LD your points are well taken. FMTA plays a similar role for tenants
along with ACTO. FMTA is funded in great part by City of Toronto , re
Tenant Hotline and Outreach and Organizing, two programs that are
dependent on public funds and subject to revenue loss. Funding for tenant
school was recently acquired and has a pilot with an Southern Ontario
focus. FMTA staff can not advocate for tenants, only the Board of
Directors, and that is limited to time and energy of the volunteer.
Over 3900 apartment buildings in Toronto and we only represent a very
small fraction of them through tenant associations. We are looking at a TA
membership of $1.00 for new TAâs and a specific drive to that effect this
calendar year. We are our own worst enemies, due to apathy and refusal to
pay the cost of organizing ourselves into a larger body.
Not to give up! In the words of Winston Churchill, Never, never, never
give up!
Cheers, John
NB The landlord site is very impressive and obviously organized with money
behind them along with the Ministry of Housing.
On Apr 3, 2016, at 2:41 PM, LD Blake <tenant_talk@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello John,They
Sunday, April 3, 2016, 2:19:28 PM, you wrote:
LD as voters we are the largest lobby group in Ontario every 4 years.
adonât listen to us between elections. I ofter thought we need to set up
tenants"?Think Tank on Rental Housing in Ontario/Canada and/or a national Tenant
Residence Group.
It's not that simple.
Who is standing up and saying "We represent 10,000 voters who are also
Who is making political donations on behalf of tenant groups?Ontario
I know a lot of people are upset about the big donations made to the
Government. It's wrong, I agree. But we have to face reality, this sortof mild
corruption is the grease that keeps the political wheels turning. It'sbeen
going on since the very beginning and it's very unlikely to stop now.The big
problem is that WE are not in the game.their
If we want the politicians to listen to us, we're gonna have to speak
language ...the end
But, what do tenants do?
We sit on our hands, complaining into thin air and hoping the light at
of the tunnel isn't a train.
Landlords have been well organized for *decades*...
http://ontariolandlords.org/
If we want change we need to ORGANIZE and become a political force to be
reckoned with... we need to play the game their way.
--
Best regards,
LD Blake
