Slumlord
solutions
Regarding Kristian Gravenor’s story “Slamming the Slums” [Aug. 22]. Having worked in the housing area since 1987 and assisted the preparation of many cases, I am absolutely amazed that successive city administrations have been unable to solve the problem of slum buildings, and slum landlords who refuse to maintain their buildings as the law requires. Anyone who works in housing knows that building maintenance is often the last thing landlords want to do with rent money. Profit and flipping buildings for profit are slumlord priorities.

The basic premise in law is to stop lawbreaking and redress all persons who have been harmed. Landlords have never been seriously pursued for their lawbreaking. Landlords who cause slums and the resulting harm to tenants are criminals. They should be treated and identified as such.
Here are some simple suggestions that will assist the City of Montreal and Michel Prescott:

1. Ask the federal government to amend the Criminal Code to include specific criminal charges when a landlord harms a tenant through neglect or denial of a basic human need.
2. Petition the Quebec National Assembly for additional powers and a specific cash fund so that any city can step in and do needed repairs.
3. Use the Criminal Code to put landlords in jail (including all those who assist landlords in this lawbreaking, i.e. real estate agents, lawyers, janitors, construction workers etc. Change the Civil Code so that tenants can use class action regulations as another tool against bad landlords.
4. Identify, with photos, all convicted landlords, at Access Montréal, the rental board, the Internet, tenants’ rights offices etc. Include a dossier with all legal particulars and proofs.
5. Publish, every year, a list of all convicted landlords, charges and photos.
6. Use the law to seize rents when a landlord is negligent to pay for repairs. Force convicted slumlords to give damage deposits to the government.
7. Increase fines to landlords so that the fines are not just a license to break the law, i.e. minimum 10 per cent of rents, rising per infraction and occurrence.
8. Use the white grocery bag garbage inspectors to verify buildings. Garbage is important but less so than decent, affordable housing.
9. Force convicted slumlords to pay all related expenditures, i.e. court costs, inspection costs, judges and prosecutors salaries, bailiff fees etc.
10. Use all tenants’ rights groups such as the Housing Hotline, RCLALQ, FRAPRU, Project Genesis, NDG Community Council etc. to be the front line, testify in court and do inspections. Training should be provided.

Our governments have made conscious choices not to solve the problems of slumlords. They allow slumlords to remain anonymous and respectable.

Solutions exist if the politicians are not afraid. Political connections to the housing industry must be broken. Different financial models, working in conjunction with banks, all government levels, community action groups and the law, are possible.

-Ted Wright, Coordinator,
Westmount Legal Clinic

Drugged drivers not subtle

This is in reference to your article on impaired driving [“Roll and smoke,” Aug. 15]. While it seems there’s been a lot of discussion about the level of THC that leads to impairment, no one seems to remember that a drug test is not required to start a vehicle. While it’s all well and good to realize that habitual users have more tolerance to the drugs than the occasional user, it must also be considered that impaired drivers will reveal themselves through their actions first, and only through blood or urine tests after a suspicious police officer has stopped them.

Drugged drivers are not subtle, and police would have much more time to spend on our roads if they weren’t protecting us from plants.

-Jay Hunter, Pittsburgh PA

Penalize
polluting drivers

Your ideas for dealing with smog were fine [“Out, out damned smog!” Aug. 15], but they didn’t deal with one of the main causes of the problem. Car drivers can pollute the air as much as they want to without being held responsible for the destructive results. What if some people who don’t own cars filed a class action lawsuit against all car owners? If car drivers were made to pay the true cost of driving we might finally get back our clean air.
-John Oliveros