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By Susan McNeil

Crime and housing

Resident proposes solutions to crime-ridden rental homes

Jun 20, 2024 | 5:00 PM

One Prince Albert resident has piqued the interest of city council with her proposals to manage landlords who don’t deal with crimes or squalor on their property.

Tamara Dunlop presented her ideas to city council on Monday, where she found interested listeners.

“The long-standing problem of landlords in the Prince Albert not adhering to bylaws and impacting our community by allowing tenants to continually conduct criminal activity and live in substandard housing has made living in some neighbourhoods in Prince Albert intolerable,” she said.

Absentee landlords – or local ones who don’t care – need to be forced to deal with their problem tenants, Dunlop said.

She suggested that the city require landlords with more than one unit to have a business license – something that is done in other communities.

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By requiring the license, the city could then enforce some rules on the landlord by withdrawing the license if the landlord does not comply.

Dunlop suggested if a residence has more than two bylaw complaints in a year, the landlord’s license would be restricted until they consulted with the neighbourhood on possible solutions to the reported problems.

Landlords who know they have criminal tenants posing a safety threat could also face losing their license unless they talk to the next door neighbours. She even suggested that adjacent property owners could decided whether the license should be renewed or not.

Tenants with problems can turn to the provincial Rentalsman office but the neighbours in private housing next door don’t have that option, she said.

The Safer Communities and Neighbourhood (SCAN) program does allow any resident to make a complaint where the health, safety and security of the neighbourhood is at risk but there are not enough SCAN officers to deal with the volume of complaints.

Councillor Blake Edwards said he liked the ideas presented but thought issues might arise for landlords trying to evict problem tenants because of provincial tenancy laws.

“That’s a common problem and landlords then battle the Rentalsman to try and evict and can’t,” he said.

“It’s definitely something that we need to consider because there’s a lot of valid points in here. I know some of them we’re already considering in some bylaw updates, boarded up housing and things like that.”

Mayor Greg Dionne and Councillor Dawn Kilmer also thanked Dunlop for her presentation and for bringing solutions rather than just complaints.

They said that the ideas will become part of the city’s ongoing discussions on housing, crime and homelessness.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com