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"Crusade To Cleanup Slumlords" - A Rebuttal |
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Written by D.L. McCracken
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Wednesday, 16 November 2005 |
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My esteemed colleague here on HalifaxLive.com, fellow columnist Hal Jesso earlier today published a column expressing his views on the slumlord issue in the HRM. While newspaper columns are the perfect genre for expressing one's personal views they are also very appropriate for expressing opposing rebuttals.
The general theme of Mr. Jesso's article seems to equate all tenants in slumlord-owned apartments to untidy, slovenly, grimy sub-humans who don't seem to particularly care if their apartments are decorated in the latest faux-fecal fashion. How bourgeois of him. How stereotypical to equate being poor with being unclean. Would it be considered a revelation to know that not all who live in slumlord-owned buildings are themselves slummy? Take any given slumlord-owned building in the HRM and residing within can be found people who by circumstance, have been forced to seek less than desirable accommodations. Just because the building is falling down around them does not mean that they live in filth in their own space. This writer has been inside a designated slum complex and lo! and behold, the apartments were clean and tidy and there wasn't one piece of human waste on the floor! What a concept - maintaining a clean apartment within a slum building. What will they think of next? Hard to believe that a one-paycheque-away-from-homelessness person actually has the capacity to maintain a clean living environment!
There are unclean people living everywhere including in slums but guess what? The slovenly live in high-end buildings as well. So, please do not associate slum conditions with the tenants because that does nothing except take the heat off the real problem - the landlords who own these buildings.
Mr. Jesso informs the "uninformed" that slumlords have been around since the beginning of time, so to speak. So that makes it right? Heroin has been around for a long time too but it's still dangerous. He makes it sound like slumlord-owned buildings have gained a certain amount of respectability just because they've been around for so long and slumlords are wonderful people doing a wonderful service providing "affordable low-cost housing in Halifax for the poor". Apparently it's ok by Mr. Jesso that the poor and unfortunate in society should thank their lucky stars that they have a roof over their heads and if that roof leaks, well life's a bitch.
There is however one tiny part of his article that I will agree with - exposing the slumlords of the HRM will be the first step in creating newly homeless. If the fire marshall or public health department were to actually enter some of these buildings and take a quick look around they would declare said buildings unsafe thus forcing the tenants to leave within a certain amount of time.
Also included on the side of the slumlord is the residential tenancy association. In order to get someone to talk to, tenants must pay between $25 and $50.00. For the less fortunate in our society that would be money they just do not have. So they remain quiet. And the slumlord continues to collect his rent each month while the building around him continues to deteriorate.
And the people within try to make do. Tenants living in a slumlord-owned building are stuck right in the middle of a classic catch-22. Report the lousy landlords and take the chance of being evicted either by city authorities or the slumlord himself in his own act of vengeance for being reported in the first place.
It's people like Mr. Jesso who are part of the problem - anyone who places "substandard rental properties" in the same sentence with "affordable housing" is either refusing to see the obvious or is a slumlord themselves.
To be poor and unfortunate in today's society is not a condition that should result in punishment. But from the slumlord's perspective, the poor and unfortunate are definitely ripe for exploitation. As long as the laws continue to remain on the side of the oppressor, the poor will continue to be victimized, and by some vilified. |
