Rent Strike Update and Eviction Resistance in Ontario
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We return to the rising wave of renters struggles across the province of Ontario.
On May 1st, tenants in the Stoney Creek Towers in Hamilton declared a rent strike, demanding that their corporate landlord drop an above-guideline rent increase of almost 10% over three years, and that the property managers perform numerous needed overdue repairs to their units.
I first interviewed Jason of the Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network back in May. The HTSN helped initiate the rent strike and works to support tenant self-organization and struggle across the city of Hamilton, and increasingly in coordination with like-minded groups across Ontario. In this follow-up interview we discuss the East Hamilton Rent Strike as it enters its fifth month.
The second interview in this episode is with a tenant organizer in the neighbourhood of Herongate in Ottawa, where another massive real estate company is attempting to conduct the largest urban eviction campaign in Canada, after having bought up a literal quarter of the neighbourhood. But the residents of Herongate aren\'t going to leave without a fight.
All the music tonight is by Lee Reed, who actually just released an EP to fundraise for the rent strike - check it out!
The audio clip at the end is Ikram Dahir, a resident of Herongate. It is part of a series of resident statements collected by Neal Rockwell.
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