Crim-eviction: Eviction and Social Control at a Residential Tenancies Tribunal

Authors

Sarah Buhler, University of Saskatchewan College of Law.

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Because eviction from rental housing can lead to highly negative outcomes, including homelessness, trauma, neighbourhood instability, and deepening inequities, it is important to understand the reasoning processes employed by tribunals when they wield the power of eviction. This article conducts a critical reading of decisions of the Office of Residential Tenancies, Saskatchewan’s residential tenancies tribunal, that deal specifically with urgent landlord applications for immediate eviction based on tenant behaviours that are alleged to be criminal, illegal, frightening, or dangerous. Coining the term “crim-eviction” to help describe this category of decisions, the article identifies that residential tenancies tribunals like the Office of Residential Tenancies are actively involved in the governance of perceived crime and disorder, as well as the discipline and management of marginalized tenants, through eviction processes. Whether or not criminal or illegal activity is alleged, the crim-eviction cases mobilize tropes and fears about crime, disorder, risk, and danger to rationalize the expulsion of tenants from their homes. Hearing officers draw on these familiar discourses and tropes, applying them in an administrative law context where formal rules of evidence do not apply, where appellate scrutiny is rare, where tenants almost never have legal assistance, and where tenants are already highly marginalized. Focusing on an eighteen-month period of eviction decisions, the article identifies several interrelated themes to support its arguments. First, it argues that the disciplinary lens adopted by the tribunal is characterized by a reliance on a conceptual binary that pits “good” tenants against “problem” tenants. Second, it shows how the tribunal uses ideas about “fear” and “risk” as justification for eviction. It shows that the tribunal is quick to associate evidence of police involvement with immediate eviction orders, and that it often views tenants who claim to be victims of harm with skepticism, depicting them instead as being responsible for the actions of those who have caused harm. The ideology of control taken up by the tribunal also manifests in a reliance on concepts from quality of life policing discourses, wherein damaged property is easily seen as a sign of disorder requiring eviction. Finally, the analysis identifies disciplinary attitudes towards even those tenants who are not evicted and the utilization in some cases of types of “civil probation” orders that serve to increase landlord power and further entrench tenant precarity.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Citation Information

Buhler, Sarah. "Crim-eviction: Eviction and Social Control at a Residential Tenancies Tribunal." Osgoode Hall Law Journal 62.1 (2025) : 109-152.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/2817-5069.4098
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol62/iss1/4

References

1. Professor at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law. I acknowledge funding support for this research from the Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science and Justice Studies at the University of Saskatchewan.

2. La Loche Housing Authority v Laprise, 2021 SKORT 1480 at para 11.

3. Kodiak Property Mgt Ltd v Bunnie, 2021 SKORT 1090 at para 16.

4. Redekopp v Roberts, 2021 SKORT 1037 at paras 22-23 [emphasis added].

5. See “What is CanLII,” online: www.canlii.org/en/info/about.html [perma.cc/7QA9-WZFX]. Note that the ORT has indicated that all ORT decisions are published on CanLII. See Tyler Young & Andrew Restall, “Office of Residential Tenancies: The Impact of Covid-19” (Winter 2020) at 19, online: BarNotes issuu.com/cbasaskatchewan/docs/barnotes_winter_2020_final [perma.cc/P78T-YPJC].

6. SS 2006, c R-22.0001, s 68 [Residential Tenancies Act].

7. Discussed in detail in Part II(E), below.

8. The term “dispositional basis” is borrowed from Herbert L Packer, who uses it in their explanation of presumptions and underlying attitudes that are held by decision makers in criminal law processes. As Issa Kohler-Hausmann notes, Packer observes that there is a “‘complex of attitudes, a mood’ that pervades the legal field, a dispositional basis to the logic of action that takes place there.” Misdemeanorland: Criminal Courts and Social Control in an Age of Broken Windows Policing (Princeton University Press, 2018) at 77, DOI: https://doi.org/10.23943/9781400890354, citing Herbert L Packer, “Two Models of the Criminal Process” (1964) 113 U Pa L Rev 1 at 12.

9. Discussed in detail Part II(B), below. The term “affective fact” is drawn from Brian Massumi. See “The Future Birth of the Affective Fact: The Political Ontology of Threat” in Melissa Gregg & Gregory J Seigworth, eds, The Affect Theory Reader (Duke University Press, 2010) 52 at 54, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393047.

10. Reflexive thematic analysis is discussed below. Note that from 26 March to 4 August 2020, the Government of Saskatchewan imposed a partial moratorium on evictions in the province due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Section 68 evictions for urgent matters continued during this time. Research has shown that s 68 eviction applications were higher during the period of the partial moratorium than they were before and after it was ended. See Sarah Buhler, “Pandemic Evictions: An Analysis of the 2020 Eviction Decisions of Saskatchewan’s Office of Residential Tenancies” (2021) 35 J L & Social Pol’y 68 at 69, 85, DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/0829-3929.1424 [Buhler, “Pandemic Evictions”].

11. As discussed in Part I(A), below, eviction for rental arrears is by far the most common ground for formal evictions in Saskatchewan and across the country.

12. Virginia Braun & Victoria Clarke, Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide (SAGE, 2022) at 55, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69909-7_3470-2.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid at 197.

15. See e.g. Suzanne Bouclin, “Identifying Pathways to and Experiences of Street Involvement through Case Law” (2015) 38 Dal LJ 345.

16. For a discussion of the importance of critical reflexivity in research, see Braun & Clarke, supra note 12 at 14.

17. Tenants did not appear in approximately 54 per cent of the cases where this element was tracked. Note that tenant attendance was not tracked for all the decisions. However, the observation that tenants often do not attend their hearings is also observed elsewhere. For example, in a study of the 2020 eviction decisions of the ORT, it was noted that tenants did not appear at their hearings approximately 62 per cent of the time. See Buhler, “Pandemic Evictions,” supra note 10 at 81.

18. One hundred per cent of the “consent orders” in the dataset considered in this research involved the tenant agreeing to move out. Settlements in eviction matters are made within a context of an inherent power imbalance and an overwhelming set of constraints ranged against the tenant. The settlement processes in eviction matters in the United States typically increase landlord power and erode tenant rights. See Nicole Summers, “Civil Probation” (2023) 75 Stan L Rev 847 at 887, 902.

19. Residential Tenancies Act, supra note 6, s 68.

20. Ibid, s 58. A landlord must normally provide the tenant a reasonable opportunity to mitigate the situation and thereafter may provide a month’s notice to the tenant.

21. Ibid, ss 70(6), 70(11). Note that the Residential Tenancies Act also permits eviction for less serious behavioural reasons under s 58, where the landlord can apply for an eviction order but must give prescribed notice to the tenant.

22. For a discussion on Ontario’s regime, see Leora Smith, “The Gendered Impact of Illegal Act Eviction Laws” (2017) 52 Harv CR-CLL Rev 537 at 543. For approaches in different provinces, see Jonnette Watson Hamilton, “Reforming Residential Tenancy Law for Victims of Domestic Violence” (2019) 8 Annual Rev Interdisciplinary Justice Research 245 at 262-64.

23. Silas Xuereb & Craig Jones, Estimating No-Fault Evictions in Canada: Understanding BC’s Disproportionate Eviction Rate in the 2021 Canadian Housing Survey (Balanced Supply of Housing Partnership, 2023) at 5.

24. Sarah Zell & Scott McCullough, Evictions and Eviction Prevention in Canada, Housing Research Report (Institute of Urban Studies, The University of Winnipeg, 2020) at 15.

25. Ibid at 22.

26. Ibid at 23-24.

27. See Smith, supra note 22.

28. See Smith, supra note 22; Mark Anthony Drumbl, “The State as Landlord: the Constitutionality of the Termination of Public Housing Leases on Account of a Tenant’s Illegal Activities” (1997) 7 Windsor Rev Legal Soc Issues 75; Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 23-24.

29. Kathryn V Ramsey, “One-Strike 2.0: How Local Governments are Distorting a Flawed Federal Eviction Law” (2018) 65 UCLA L Rev 1146 at 1193-94. See also Leah Goodridge & Helen Strom, “Innocent until Proven Guilty?: Examining the Constitutionality of Public Housing Evictions Based on Criminal Activity” (2016) 8 Duke Forum for L & Soc Change 1.

30. Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 20. See also Xuereb & Jones, supra note 23.

31. Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 27.

32. See generally Summers, supra note 18. Summers discusses the ideology of control displayed by American eviction courts dealing with non-payment of rent. See also Kathryn A Sabbeth, “Eviction Courts” (2022) 18 U St Thomas LJ 359 at 402 [Sabbeth, “Eviction Courts”].

33. Emily Paradis & Tracy Heffernan, “Preventing Homelessness by Preventing Eviction” (24 November 2016), online: Homeless Hub www.homelesshub.ca/blog/preventing-homelessness-preventing-eviction [perma.cc/B6PA-37CT].

34. Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 11.

35. Ibid.

36. Emily Paradis, Access to Justice: The Case for Ontario Tenants (Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, 2016) at 82.

37. See Sabbeth, “Eviction Courts,” supra note 32 at 371.

38. See Canadian Human Rights Commission, The Financialization of Housing in Canada: A Summary Report for the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, by Martine August (CHRC, 2022) at 4, online (pdf): publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2023/ccdp-chrc/HR34-7-2022-eng.pdf [perma.cc/B837-UCA6].

39. See Saskatoon Housing Initiatives Partnership, “Core Housing Need” (last visited 25 January 2024), online:

40. See Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 10-11.

41. See Alan B Anderson, Home in the City: Urban Aboriginal Housing and Living Conditions (University of Toronto Press, 2013) at 255, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442662230.

42. See Tonya L Brito et al, “Racial Capitalism in the Civil Courts” (2022) 122 Colum L Rev at 1273-76. See also Sabbeth, “Eviction Courts,” supra note 32 at 400. See generally Ricardo Tranjan, The Tenant Class (Between the Lines, 2023).

43. See Emma R Power & Charles Gillon, “Performing the ‘Good Tenant’” (2020) 37 Housing Studies 459 at 461, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2020.1813260. Power & Gillon discuss dominant ideas connecting property ownership with notions of responsibility and good citizenship.

44. Corporate landlords are more likely to be at the “mercy of their spreadsheets” and reluctant to negotiate or work with tenants. See City of Toronto Shelter, Housing and Support Division, Analysis of Evictions Under the Tenant Protection Act in the City of Toronto: The Non-Profit Housing Sector, by Linda Lapointe (SHSD, 2004) at 18, online: web.archive.org/web/20220309031232/http://www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/elibrary/Toronto_Non-Profit-Housing-.pdf [perma.cc/XJ7X-XNET].

45. See Brenda Parker & Catherine Leviten-Reid, “Pandemic Precarity and Everyday Disparity: Gendered Housing Needs in North America” (2022) 49 Housing & Society 10 at 18-19, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08882746.2021.1922044.

46. See Philip ME Garboden & Eva Rosen, “Serial Filing: How Landlords Use the Threat of Eviction” (2019) 18 City & Community 638, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12387.

47. “Housing Defense as the New Gideon” (2018) 41 Harv JL & Gender 55 at 99, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2931102.

48. Residential Tenancies Act, supra note 6, s 75.

49. See Buhler, “Pandemic Evictions,” supra note 10 at 82.

50. See Wiegers v Braaten, 2021 SKORT 1296 at paras 6-8.

51. See Provincial Auditor of Saskatchewan, Report of the Provincial Auditor to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, vol 1 (Provincial Auditor of Saskatchewan, 2021) at 117, 125, online (pdf): auditor.sk.ca/pub/publications/public_reports/2021/Volume_1/2021%20Full%20Report%20Volume%201.pdf [perma.cc/3YPP-87GW].

52. Ibid.

53. See Buhler, “Pandemic Evictions,” supra note 10 at 98. See also Kathryn A Sabbeth, “Simplicity as Justice” (2018) Wis L Rev 287 at 294-95. Sabbeth has noted that “swift justice” can be problematic for tenants and that “[s]lower processes can offer benefits to otherwise disadvantaged parties. For a poor tenant, slowing down the process…can provide time to scrape together money to pay the rent, to accumulate evidence in her defense, or to locate alternative housing” (ibid).

54. For a discussion of the barriers that tenants face in appeals, see Jonnette Watson Hamilton, “Expensive, Complex Appeals from Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service Orders” (16 July 2015), online (blog): ablawg.ca/2015/07/16/expensive-complex-appeals-from-residential-tenancy-dispute-resolution-service-orders [perma.cc/LL9D-UF6K]; Buhler, “Pandemic Evictions,” supra note 10 at 76.

55. See Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 74-75; Paradis & Heffernan, supra note 33.

56. See Rebecca L Sandefur, “Elements of Professional Expertise: Understanding Relational and Substantive Expertise Through Lawyers’ Impact” (2015) 80 Am Soc Rev 909 at 925, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122415601157; Sabbeth, “Eviction Courts,” supra note 32 at 399.

57. Sabbeth, “Eviction Courts,” supra note 32 at 402.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

60. See Robert Tarantino, “Creating Conflict: Legal Strategies for Housing the Homeless in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside” (2010) 28 Windsor Rev Legal Soc Issues 109 at 114.

61. SC 2019, c 29, s 313, s 4(a).

62. For a discussion of the literature on the impacts of eviction, see Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 37-43. See also Mary Clare Kennedy, Ryan McNeil & MJ Milloy, “Residential Eviction and Exposure to Violence Among People Who Inject Drugs in Vancouver, Canada” (2017) 41 Intl J Drug Policy 59, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.12.017.

63. For a discussion on the topic, see Yael Cannon, “Injustice is an Underlying Condition” (2020) 6 U Pa JL & Pub Affairs 201 at 240-42; Emily A Benfer et al, “Eviction, Health Inequity, and the Spread of COVID-19: Housing Policy as a Primary Pandemic Mitigation Strategy” (2021) 98 J Urban Health 1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-020-00502-1.

64. See Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 78.

65. Kathryn A Sabbeth, “Erasing the ‘Scarlet E’ of Eviction Records” (12 April 2021), online: The Appeal theappeal.org/the-lab/report/erasing-the-scarlet-e-of-eviction-records [perma.cc/9BJ3-PVTM].

66. Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Crown, 2016) at 299.

67. See Marc Galanter, “Punishment: Civil Style” (1991) 25 Israel LR 759, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021223700010748 [Galanter, “Punishment”]. See also Tiffany Lethabo King, “One Strike Evictions, State Space and the Production of Abject Black Female Bodies” (2010) 36 Critical Sociology 45 at 46, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920509347140; RA Duff, “Perversions and Subversions of Criminal Law” in RA Duff et al, eds, The Boundaries of the Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 2010) 88 at 108, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199600557.003.0004.

68. For discussion see Rob Canton, Punishment (Routledge, 2022) at 12-17, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429055829; Thom Brooks, Punishment: A Critical Introduction, 2nd ed (Routledge, 2021) at 4-5, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315527772.

69. “The Collateral Consequences of Seeking Order: New York’s Narcotics Eviction Program” (2008) 43 Harv CR-CLL Rev 539 at 558.

70. See Graham Hudson, “The (Mis-)Uses of Analogy: Constructing and Challenging Crimmigration in Canada” in Idil Atak & James C Simeon, eds, The Criminalization of Migration: Context and Consequences (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018) 37 at 41, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780773555631-004.

71. Galanter, “Punishment,” supra note 67 at 759.

72. Ibid at 778.

73. Red Zones: Criminal Law and the Territorial Governance of Marginalized People (Cambridge University Press, 2019) at 132, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316875544.

74. “Welfare Fraud: the Constitution of Social Assistance as a Crime” in Janet Mosher and Joan Brockman, eds, Constructing Crime: Contemporary Processes of Criminalization (UBC Press, 2010) 17 at 18-19, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780774818216-003.

75. Alexandra Natapoff, “The High Stakes of Low-Level Criminal Justice” (2019) 128 Yale LJ 1648 at 1660. See also Malcom Feeley, The Process is the Punishment: Handling Cases in a Lower Criminal Court, revised ed (Russell Sage Foundation, 1992).

76. See Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (Oxford University Press, 2007) at 172, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195181081.001.0001.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. See Andrew Rutherford, “Criminal Policy and the Eliminative Ideal” (1997) 31 Soc Pol’y & Admin 116 at 117, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9515.00078. Rutherford discusses the “eliminative ideal” which “strives to solve present and emerging problems by getting rid of troublesome and disagreeable people with methods which are lawful and widely supported” (ibid).

80. See Veronique Fortin, “The Control of Public Spaces in Montreal in Times of Managerial Justice” (2018) 15 Champ pénal/Penal field, s 3.3, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/champpenal.10115. Fortin discusses these issues, other related issues, and the idea of “banishment as punishment.”

81. “Crime-free Housing Ordinances: One Call Away from Eviction” (2014) 19 Pub Interest L Reporter 106 at 108.

82. Leora Smith, “When the Police Call Your Landlord” (13 March 2020), online: The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/crime-free-housing-lets-police-influence-landlords/605728 [perma.cc/A2ZV-M4LY].

83. See e.g. Emily Peiffer, “Communities Can Better Prevent Homelessness through Housing- and Justice-System Partnerships” (16 September 2020), online: Housing Matters housingmatters.urban.org/feature/communities-can-better-prevent-homelessness-through-housing-and-justice-system-partnerships [perma.cc/2CSA-D6PA]; John Howard Society of Ontario, Social Research and Demonstration Corporation & Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, No Fixed Address: The Intersections of Justice Involvement and Homelessness (John Howard Society of Ontario, 2022) at 8, 16-17 [No Fixed Address].

84. Caitlin Cahill et al, “‘They Were Looking at Us Like We Were Bad People’: Growing Up Policed in the Gentrifying, Still Disinvested City” (2019) 18 ACME 1128 at 1131.

85. No Fixed Address, supra note 83 at 13.

86. “Gideon’s Servants and the Criminalization of Poverty” (2015) 12 Ohio State J Crim L 445 at 447 [Natapoff, “Gideon’s Servants”].

87. “The New Housing Segregation; the Jim Crow Effects of Crime-Free Housing Ordinances” (2019) 118 Mich L Rev 173 at 208, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36644/mlr.118.2.new. Archer’s work focuses on the impacts of so-called crime-free housing ordinances in the United States.

88. “The Cyclical Nature of Poverty: Evicting the Poor” (2020) 45 Law & Soc Inquiry 839 at 849, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2020.12.

89. Marianne Quirouette et al, “‘Conflict with the Law’: Regulation & Homeless Youth Trajectories toward Stability” (2016) 31 CJLS 383 at 384, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/cls.2016.26.

90. Ibid at 392. See also No Fixed Address, supra note 83 at 11.

91. Quirouette et al, supra note 89 at 393.

92. See discussion in Erin Dej, A Complex Exile: Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Canada (UBC Press, 2020) at 43-46, DOI: https://doi.org/10.59962/9780774865135.

93. See David S Kirk, “The Collateral Consequences of Incarceration for Housing” in Beth M Huebner & Natasha A Frost, eds, Handbook on the Consequences of Sentencing and Punishment Decisions (Routledge, 2018) at 53, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429466380.

94. Ibid at 60. Compare Hensleigh Crowell, “A Home of One’s Own: The Fight Against Illegal Housing Discrimination Based on Criminal Convictions, and Those Who Are Still Left Behind” (2017) 95 Tex L Rev 1103 at 1115 (people who are able to find stable and secure housing are much less likely to return to prison).

95. “Integrating the Access to Justice Movement” (2018) 87 Fordham L Rev 172 at 174.

96. Paradis, supra note 36 at 58.

97. See Dej, supra note 92 at 44; No Fixed Address, supra note 83 at 33.

98. See Hudson, supra note 70 at 62-63; David Alan Sklansky “Crime, Immigration, and Ad Hoc Instrumentalism” (2012) 15 New Crim L Rev 157 at 159, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2012.15.2.157.

99. Idil Atak & James C Simeon, “Introduction: The Criminalization of Migration: Context and Consequences” in Idil Atak & James C Simeon, eds, supra note 70 at 5, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv941wq2.5.

100. David Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society (University of Chicago Press, 2001) at 124. See also João Gustavo Vieira Velloso, “Beyond Criminocentric Dogmatism: Mapping Institutional Forms of Punishment in Contemporary Societies” (2013) 15 P & S 166, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474513477979 (civil or administrative and criminal systems can operate as separate normative systems, yet have reinforcing effects).

101. Velloso, supra note 100 at 171.

102. See Eisha Jain, “Arrests as Regulation” (2015) 67 Stan L Rev 809 at 815.

103. Smith, supra note 82.

104. “Silence in the Court: Participation and Subordination of Poor Tenants’ Voices in Legal Process” (1992) 20 Hofstra L Rev 533 at 540, 556.

105. Ibid at 540.

106. For a discussion of this dynamic, see Sarah Buhler, “Law’s Sense of Smell: Odours and Evictions at the Landlord and Tenant Board” in Sheryl N Hamilton et al, eds, Sensing Law (Routledge, 2017) 179 at 187, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315642116 [Buhler, “Law’s Sense of Smell”]. For a discussion on the connections between surveillance and evictions, see Alexandra Collins et al, “Surviving the Housing Crisis: Social Violence and the Production of Evictions Among Women Who Use Drugs in Vancouver, Canada” (2018) 51 Health & Place 174 at 175, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2018.04.001.

107. See Buhler, “Law’s Sense of Smell,” supra note 106 at 186.

108. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, revised ed (Routledge, 2017) at 14, DOI: https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/10.4324/9781351327763.

109. See Kohler-Hausmann, supra note 8 at 184.

110. Ibid.

111. This dynamic is explored in Part II(B), below.

112. Luetdke v Mirasty, 2021 SKORT 920 at para 18.

113. Harding v Ballantyne, 2020 SKORT 1261 at para 6.

114. Meadow Lake Housing Authority v Freeman, 2020 SKORT 1038 at paras 24, 26.

115. Avenue Living Communities v Bear, 2020 SKORT 2395 at para 32 [Bear].

116. PA Community Housing v Harris, 2020 SKORT 1141 at para 24.

117. Weber v Episkenew, 2020 SKORT 1043 at para 18 [Weber].

118. Tisdale Housing Authority v Tabin, 2020 SKORT 2439 at para 14 [Tabin].

119. Avenue Living v Lariviere, 2020 SKORT 2392 at para 19.

120. Ibid at paras 16, 18.

121. Ibid at paras 19, 25.

122. Supra note 67 at 51.

123. Supra note 43 at 460.

124. Ibid at 477-78.

125. Mainstreet v Pelletier, 2021 SKORT 637 at para 6.

126. Ibid.

127. Plett v Rope, 2020 SKORT 1064 at para 22 [Plett].

128. Harvey v Sharp, 2020 SKORT 897 at para 7.

129. Ibid at paras 7, 9-11.

130. Lucas v Siman, 2020 SKORT 2598 at paras 17, 19.

131. See Massumi, supra note 9 at 54 [emphasis added].

132. Ibid.

133. “Urbanscapes of Injustice and Insecurity” in Barbara Hudson & Synnøve Ugelvik, eds, Justice and Security in the 21st Century: Risks, Rights and the Rule of Law (Routledge, 2012) 121 at 132 [emphasis in original].

134. See Boardwalk REIT Properties Holdings v Larson, 2020 SKORT 1013 at para 19.

135. Ibid.

136. Ibid at para 20 [emphasis added].

137. See Klein v Wyman, SKORT 2020 1042 at paras 19-27. The installation of a security system suggests that the tenant may have been fearful of break-ins.

138. See Boardwalk REIT Properties v Pearce, 2020 SKORT 910 at paras 8-9.

139. John J Rodger, Criminalising Social Policy: Anti-Social Behavior and Welfare in a De-civilised Society, revised ed (Routledge, 2013) at 186, DOI: https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/10.4324/9781843925408. See Garland, supra note 100 at 152-53. Garland discusses how “fear of crime” has become “much more routine, much more a part of the habitus of everyday life” (ibid [emphasis in original]).

140. See Roberts Properties Inc v Hoeft, 2020 SKORT 6 at para 5.

141. See Nguyen v Daud, 2021 SKORT 1125 at para 10 [Nguyen].

142. Indeed, one report has argued that residency in a rooming house could be considered a type of homelessness. See Joanna Binch, Erin Dej & John Ecker, “Rooming Houses – Homeless or Housed?” (27 September 2018), online (blog): homelesshub.ca/blog/2018/rooming-houses-homeless-or-housed [perma.cc/CJL6-RN7K].

143. See Parker & Leviten-Reid, supra note 45 at 19-20. For a discussion of structural violence and its connection to interpersonal violence, see Stephanie Rose Montesanti & Wilfreda E Thurston, “Mapping the Role of Structural and Interpersonal Violence in the Lives of Women: Implications for Public Health Interventions and Policy” (2015) 15 BMC Women’s Health 1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-015-0256-4.

144. See also Tim Hope, “Crime Victimisation and Inequality in Risk Society” in Roger Matthews & John Pitts, eds, Crime, Disorder and Community Safety (Routledge, 2001) at 193.

145. See supra note 8 at 73.

146. “Risking Housing Need” (1999) 26 JL & Soc’y 403 at 414-15, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00134.

147. Glen Elm Properties v Winter, 2020 SKORT 1075 at para 16.

148. Ibid at paras 18, 20-22.

149. DLB Properties v Dodds, 2021 SKORT 393 at paras 13, 18, 21.

150. Tabin, supra note 118 at paras 16, 21, 27.

151. Ibid at para 21.

152. Ibid at para 27. However, the landlord had indicated in the hearing that it was prepared to “work with” the tenant and would not enforce the writ of possession if the tenant continued “the efforts he detailed in the hearing” and provided the landlord with information about ongoing efforts in relation to health appointments (ibid at paras 23-24, 26). This type of condition placed on an eviction order is discussed later in the article.

153. Natapoff, “Gideon’s Servants,” supra note 86 at 447.

154. As noted, it is common for the crim-eviction decisions to use evidence of any type of police interaction as part of the justification for an immediate eviction order. This is the case even where police have apparently determined that there is no ongoing threat posed by a tenant. For example, in one case, police came and were able to “calm the tenant.” But the evidence of police involvement appeared to be part of the evidence that the hearing officer used to justify an immediate eviction order. See Nguyen, supra note 141 at paras 10-11, 15.

155. Anderson v Hooey, 2020 SKORT 200 at para 8.

156. Jain, supra note 102 at 816.

157. Norrinda Brown Hayat, “Housing the Decarcerated: Covid-19, Abolition & the Right to Housing” (2022) 110 Cal L Rev 639 at 675, DOI: https://doi.org/10.15779/Z382F7JSOT.

158. Supra note 102 at 866.

159. Supra note 76 at 197.

160. Archer, supra note 87 at 204-205.

161. Schmidt v Shynkaruk, 2020 SKORT 1153 at para 23. Note that this case also involved multiple other complaints about the tenant’s activities in the rental unit.

162. See also Sarah Swan, “Home Rules” (2015) 64 Duke LJ 823 at 856-58; Sandra S Park, Stopping Evictions Caused by Nuisance, Policy Proposal in Protect Tenants, Prevent Homelessness (National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, 2018) at 28-29 [Park, Stopping Evictions].

163. Swan, supra note 162 at 858; Park, Stopping Evictions, supra note 162 at 28.

164. 3J Holdings v Romanycia, 2020 SKORT 176 at para 10.

165. Choudhury v Micha & Anor, 2021 SKORT 1075 at para 21.

166. Plett, supra note 127 at para 19.

167. Dionne v Desjarlais, 2020 SKORT 45 at para 3.

168. Ramage v Millham, 2020 SKORT 1108 at para 22.

169. See Goodridge & Strom, supra note 29 at 4-5.

170. Supra note 82.

171. “Constitutional Limits on Using Civil Remedies to Achieve Criminal Objectives: Understanding and Transcending the Criminal-Civil Law Distinction” (1991) 42 Hastings LJ 1325 at 1329.

172. See Government of Saskatchewan, “Keeping Your Neighbourhood Safe” (last visited 6 November 2024), online: www.saskatchewan.ca/residents/justice-crime-and-the-law/your-rights-and-the-law/keeping-your-neighbourhood-safe [perma.cc/8LPC-ZPNP]; Shawn’s Property Management v Lavallee, 2021 SKORT 408 at paras 1, 3, 10-12; Dent v Petty, 2021 SKORT 1080 at para 24; Repp Enterprises v Lameman, 2021 SKORT 404 at para 6; Jenny L Anderson v Shelby Donald & Anor, 2021 SKORT 841 at para 6.

173. See e.g. Westgate Heights Attainable Housing v Shott, 2020 SKORT 1145 at paras 1-2, 14 [Shott]; Shera v Davis, 2020 SKORT 1114 at paras 1-2, 17.

174. See Delaney v Hunter, 2020 SKORT 851 at para 6 (where the landlord shared police “file numbers and testimony”); Star Real Estate Investors Inc v Rinas, 2021 SKORT 1479 at para 7 (where the landlord submitted a letter from police).

175. Weber, supra note 117 at para 18.

176. Pino v King, 2021 SKORT 241 at para 6.

177. See Neudorf v Fiddler, 2021 SKORT 1268; Oyetuga v Hinz, 2020 SKORT 313; Stevenseon v Smith, 2020 SKORT 1010.

178. Micol Seigel, Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police (Duke University Press, 2018), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478002024.

179. Yuzik v Daniels, 2020 SKORT 1143 at para 22. However, note that the hearing officer then explained that “this consideration is not material to the decision” (ibid).

180. Densham v Sparvier, 2020 SKORT 1073.

181. TA v Cobalt Bay Capital, 2021 SKORT 960 at para 7. Note that this was not an eviction case, but rather a breach of tenant’s rights case brought by the tenant. However, the hearing officer made this observation as part of the written decision.

182. Chukwukelu v Joseph, 2020 SKORT 2448 at para 17.

183. Broadstreet Properties Ltd v Pechawis & Anor, 2021 SKORT 1183 at para 9.

184. See Mah Noor Mubarik, “Sask. Allows Victims of Sexual Assault to End their Fixed-Term Lease Earlier,” CBC News (13 September 2021), online: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sexual-assault-violence-lease-1.6173830 [perma.cc/LDF2-4SWY].

185. See Swan, supra note 162 at 874.

186. Ibid at 875 [emphasis in original].

187. See supra note 22 at 558.

188. Supra note 76 at 200.

189. See Safri Management Corp v Frederickson, 2021 SKORT 506.

190. Ibid.

191. DLB Properties v Stonehild, 2020 SKORT 1104 at para 19.

192. Ibid.

193. Prairie Heights v Little, 2020 SKORT 1018 at para 25.

194. “Informal Support Among Low-Income Mothers Post Welfare Reform: A Systematic Review” (2018) 27 J Child & Family Studies 3782, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1223-0. For a discussion on “care networks,” see also Emily Grabham, Women, Precarious Work and Care (Bristol University Press, 2021) at 55, DOI: https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529218732.ch004.

195. “Shadow Care Infrastructures: Sustaining Life in Post-Welfare Cities” (2022) 46 Progress in Human Geography 1165, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325221109837.

196. See Part II(A), above, for a discussion and overview of s 68 of the Residential Tenancies Act.

197. Clavell notes that the broken windows theory (discussed below) has become a “governance paradigm” beyond the field of policing. See supra note 133 at 132 [emphasis in original].

198. The broken windows theory was originally described by George L Kelling & James Q Wilson. See “Broken Windows” (March 1982), online: The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465.

199. Law and Order: Images, Meanings, Myths (Routledge-Cavendish, 2006) at 133.

200. Ibid.

201. Banished: The New Social Control in Urban America (Oxford University Press, 2009) at 33, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395174.001.0001.

202. Ibid at 44. However, George Kelling later argued that Kelling and Wilson never called for a “high arrest program.” See “Don’t Blame My ‘Broken Windows’ Theory For Poor Policing” (11 August 2015), online: Politico www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/broken-windows-theory-poor-policing-ferguson-kelling-121268 [perma.cc/G2XD-V7XA].

203. Martin Innes, “Signal Crimes and Signal Disorders: Notes on Deviance as Communicative Action” (2004) 55 British J Sociology 335 at 341, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2004.00023.x.

204. See Cahill et al, supra note 84 at 1134.

205. See Bozek v Ahpay, 2020 SKORT 1012 [Bozek].

206. See Vandelay Homes v Louison, 2021 SKORT 34 [Vandelay].

207. See Turanich Acquisitions Management v Oleskiw, 2021 SKORT 211.

208. Randhawa v Ironchild, 2020 SKORT 1088 at para 16.

209. Elite Property Management v Obey, 2020 SKORT 1491 at para 8.

210. See also Marc Zimmerman, “From Broken Windows to Busy Streets” (15 July 2011), online: Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center yvpc.sph.umich.edu/from-broken-windows-to-busy-streets [perma.cc/HF7H-LH25].

211. Iftikhar v Genaille, 2020 SKORT 1133 at para 19.

212. EA Properties Inc v Curly, 2021 SKORT 1904 at para 7.

213. Shott, supra note 173 at para 16.

214. Vandelay, supra note 206 at para 19.

215. Bozek, supra note 205.

216. See Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and Twenty-First-Century Culture (Stanford University Press, 2017) at 114, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11126/stanford/9780804799058.001.0001.

217. Supra note 162 at 852.

218. For an example, see Avenue Living v Clarkson, 2021 SKORT 763.

219. See also Yale D Belanger, Gabrielle Weasel Head & Olu Awosoga, Assessing Urban Aboriginal Housing and Homelessness in Canada (Urban Aboriginal Knowledge Network, 2012) at 23.

220. Anderson, supra note 41 at 106-108.

221. Ibid at 255.

222. See e.g. Power & Gillon, supra note 43. See also Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, Access and Equality for Renters in Receipt of Public Assistance: A Report to Stakeholders (SHRC, 2018) at 14.

223. 102105668 Saskatchewan Inc v Kemp & Anor, 2021 SKORT 1122 at para 11.

224. Prince Albert Housing Authority v Olson, 2021 SKORT 1509 at para 9.

225. Sandbrand v Moberly, 2021 SKORT 805 at paras 20-21.

226. Niesner Properties Inc v Corey Hall, 2021 SKORT 840 at para 22.

227. Avenue Living v Dorion, 2020 SKORT 1061 at para 21; Hall Rental Homes v Sebastian, 2020 SKORT 1076.

228. Philipchuk v Atcheynum, 2020 SKORT 2587 at para 14 [emphasis added].

229. Antonichuk v Gamelin, 2021 SKORT 190 at para 13.

230. Ibid.

231. Bear, supra note 115 at para 34.

232. See Tabin, supra note 118.

233. See supra note 18.

234. Ibid at 54, 58.

235. For discussions, see Hayat, supra note 157 at 676; Human Rights Watch, No Second Chance: People with Criminal Records Denied Access to Public Housing (Human Rights Watch, 2004) at 22.

236. For a discussion of neighbours’ rights to live in safety, see also Alan Deacon, “Justifying Conditionality: The Case of Anti-social Tenants” (2004) 19 Housing Studies 911 at 918, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0267303042000293008.

237. See Smith, supra note 22 at 539.

238. Desmond, supra note 66 at 298.

239. See Michelle Brown & Judah Schept, “New Abolition, Criminology and a Critical Carceral Studies” (2017) 19 Punishment & Society 440 at 448-49, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474516666281 (discussing how criminalization makes life less liveable for those subjected to it, which also applies to eviction).

240. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “Organized Abandonment and Organized Violence: Devolution and the Police” (9 November 2015), online: UC Santa Cruz thi.ucsc.edu/event/ruth-wilson-gilmore-2 [perma.cc/H5KS-MX7D].

241. See Brown & Schept, supra note 239 at 448.

242. We know that care and support are present in some landlord-tenant relationships, and we know that eviction prevention strategies exist and are employed in many cases. See Zell & McCullough, supra note 24 at 56-58.

243. Supra note 162 at 898.

244. See “(Under)Enforcement of Poor Tenants’ Rights” (2019) 27 Geo J on Poverty L & Pol’y 97 at 136.

245. See Leilani Farha & Kaitlin Schwan, “A National Protocol for Homeless Encampments in Canada” (30 April 2020) at 20, online: The Shift www.make-the-shift.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/A-National-Protocol-for-Homeless-Encampments-in-Canada.pdf [perma.cc/U53D-7LEB].