Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force Poverty Task Force

RentSafe Update: From Local Research to Stronger Rental Housing Standards in Owen Sound

On July 27th, Owen Sound City Council approved a new Vital Services By-law and updates to the Property Standards By-law addressing mould and pests.

For those involved with RentSafe Owen Sound, this is an important milestone in work underway for several years to better understand rental housing conditions and find collaborative solutions that support healthy, safe and affordable housing.

The Vital Services By-law establishes clearer responsibilities for landlords to ensure tenants have essential services, including heat, hot and cold water, electricity, gas and, where required under a lease, air conditioning. It also gives the City tools to investigate complaints and to take action when the loss of a vital service creates a health or safety concern.

From Research to Action

In November 2024, the RentSafe Owen Sound Collaborative presented its Landlord & Tenant Survey Findings and recommendations to the City of Owen Sound’s Corporate Services Committee.

The surveys provided an important opportunity to hear from both sides of the rental housing relationship. 545 tenants responded to the tenant survey, representing an estimated 28% of rental units in Owen Sound. The landlord survey included 36 landlords/property managers responsible for nearly 800 units, estimated at approximately 40% of the local rental market.

What we heard demonstrated that housing quality is a shared concern.

RentSafe tenant survey respondents identified significant concerns with temperature, pests, water leaks, mould and indoor air quality.

Among tenant respondents, 73% reported pests/insects other than bedbugs, 71% reported their unit being too hot or too cold, 62% reported water leaks and 47% reported mould. Sixty percent reported anxiety related to the physical condition of their unit.

Landlords also identified challenges maintaining rental properties, including finding contractors, gaining access to units for repairs, maintenance costs and communication with tenants.

Importantly, tenants and landlords identified many of the same housing quality concerns, including temperature control, windows, plumbing and water leaks, pests and bedbugs, and mould. Read the full report here.

We Are All Neighbours

One of the strongest messages from the research was that tenants can feel trapped while landlords can feel stuck.

For tenants, rising rents and limited housing options can make it difficult to leave unhealthy housing. For landlords, maintaining Owen Sound’s older rental housing stock can involve significant costs and challenges.

This is why RentSafe’s work focuses on bringing people together rather than placing responsibility for our housing challenges on one group.

RentSafe seeks solutions that recognize the experiences of tenants and landlords while protecting Owen Sound’s existing affordable rental housing.

What Did RentSafe Recommend?

In 2024, RentSafe presented 3 immediate recommendations to the City.

1. Better rental housing data. We recommended collecting information on habitability issues identified through by-law and fire inspections—including mould, pests, water leaks and broken windows—to better understand conditions in Owen Sound’s older rental housing stock.

2. Clearer standards for mould. We recommended incorporating Ontario’s model mould by-law language into Owen Sound’s Property Standards By-law. The City’s new updates addressing mould and pests represent important progress on an issue identified through the RentSafe research.

3. Support landlords and tenants. We invited the City to be part of solutions that help landlords maintain healthy rental properties while improving effective landlord-tenant relationships. During a housing crisis, we need new affordable housing—but we also need to protect and improve the affordable rental housing we already have.

The Next Question: Extreme Heat

During Council’s July 27th discussion, the question of a “right to cooling” and maximum indoor temperatures was raised. This connects directly with the RentSafe findings: 71% of tenant respondents reported their unit being too hot or too cold.

Under Owen Sound’s new Vital Services By-law, landlords must provide a minimum temperature of 20°C from September 15th to May 31st. Under Section 11-C of the prepared by-law a maximum indoor temperature of 26C is in place, if the lease indicates an air-conditioner and landlords are required to ensure suitable cool air in a unit. Bylaw can charge the landlord if they don’t repair an existing air conditioner and/or if they remove it. 

There is a new provision in the Residential Tenancy Act effective July 1st, 2026, regarding air conditioning, maintenance and repairs as well as utility charges.  Tenants are permitted to install a window or portable air conditioner, even where a lease prohibits it, as long as it meets the prescribed conditions and notifies the landlord in writing.  Seasonal rent increases may be applied by landlords to cover electrical costs.

There are currently no by-laws in Ontario, that require all units to have permanent cooling systems. This would require a retrofit or renovations of buildings which would impact the availability and affordability of rental units in the City. The cities of Toronto and Hamilton are currently researching a Maximum Heat By-Law and the City of Owen Sound will monitor these initiatives.  

This opens an important next conversation for RentSafe.

Healthy Housing Is Also a Climate Issue

Extreme heat increasingly intersects with the issues RentSafe has been working on for years: housing quality, affordability, health and equity.

Older rental buildings can be particularly challenging. Aging windows, inadequate ventilation and limited cooling can increase exposure to extreme temperatures. At the same time, major retrofits can be expensive.

The challenge is finding solutions that improve tenant health and climate resilience without contributing to displacement or the loss of affordable rental housing.

The 2024 RentSafe Owen Sound work identified three interconnected challenges: unit quality concerns, lack of trust and communication, and lack of satisfaction with the rental housing system. It also pointed toward longer-term opportunities, including proactive inspections, stronger community involvement and measures to preserve affordable rental housing.

The adoption of stronger mould, pest and Vital Services standards demonstrates how local research, community collaboration and municipal leadership can translate into action.

As we build on this work, our next question is:

What does healthy, safe, affordable and climate-resilient rental housing look like for Owen Sound?

The Poverty Task Force and our RentSafe partners will continue working with tenants, landlords, the City and community partners to explore this question. Together with RentSafe Ontario we will come together next on September 29th to discuss climate resiliency and rental housing.

jillumbach Advocacy, Media, Partner Activities

Rain won’t stop homeless campout

OWEN SOUND – As preparations were made Friday for Safe ‘n Sound’s second annual overnight campout to raise awareness and some money to combat homelessness, the rain started.

Organizers want to remind people that some around us do camp in all kinds of weather because they have to. Richard Suchow, the manager at the downtown drop-in and homeless referral agency, plans to pitch tarps, a tent and camp behind the centre at 310 8th St. E.

“We’ll brave the elements as long as we’re able to do that without being ridiculous and freezing to death,” Suchow said as the rain already started to fall over the lunch hour. “Where unlike true homelessness, we can go in and get warm and come back out.”

The centre will be open all night to support campers, who may simply wrap themselves in blankets and sleeping bags and sit on chairs through the night, Suchow said.

He and three other volunteers, Bill Baker, Shawn McMann and Lynn Dilworth, sat on a bench behind the centre with sleeping bags in hand and talked about homelessness and what they’re trying to do about it.

The citizen-led agency opened in spring, 2009. It offers a place to meet, lockers to store belongings and get help accessing resources. Arrangements for after-hours emergency shelter are made here too.

Safe ‘n Sound receives $2,000 per month from Grey County to help cover expenses but the operation runs mostly on volunteers.

Baker is responsible for the storeroom where donated clothing and toiletries are given to people in need. He said local people are very generous. He planned to hand out available sleeping bags Friday night.

McMann is currently couch surfing and declined to discuss his personal circumstances. But he volunteers at the centre and does Dilworth, who was homeless 2 1/2 years ago after a marital breakup left her with little more than a backpack of belongings. Now she accommodates homeless people on her couch and even in a tent and in her backyard.

Suchow said the agency always needs money and volunteers in a variety of capacities, including web design and even someone with a truck to pick up donations. But the educational part of Friday night’s event is just as important, he said.

“Unfortunately, when you’re in poverty and homelessness the people feel less of themselves.

And they really feel like they’re under the microscope,” Suchow said. And so, he said, homeless people are often apologetic when caught sleeping in stairways and bank machine enclosures.

“I think it’s because people don’t understand homelessness. And so they don’t realize this isn’t a bad person because they are homeless. That we see middle-class families in some cases have lost everything. It just happens.”

Saturday morning at the Queen’s Park bandstand along 1st Ave. W., speakers will talk about homelessness, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MP Larry Miller will make an appearance and Owen Sound Mayor Deb Haswell is scheduled to make remarks about 10 a.m.

To donate money online, go to Canadahelps.org and search Safe ‘n Sound Residence. To learn about volunteer opportunities or to arrange to donate materials, call 519-470-7233.

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jillumbach Advocacy, Media

Bus operators need to be encouraged to come here

By Denis Langlois, Sun Times, Owen Sound

Saturday, October 5, 2013 4:58:09 EDT PM

The closure of Owen Sound’s bus terminal and Greyhound’s decision to cut its routes to the city has put a spotlight on transportation issues in our area.

Specifically, it has highlighted the importance of intercity bus service to rural communities.

Students attending school in Toronto, London, Barrie and elsewhere, for example, rely on the bus to get to and from their rural Ontario homes.

People use the bus to get to hospitals in major Ontario cities, to visit family in southern Ontario and to access services not found locally. Some people just want to hop aboard a bus to spend time in Toronto.

Despite the need for bus transportation, options for people in rural Ontario, including Grey-Bruce, continue to decline.

Greyhound now only makes one trip daily into and out of Owen Sound. The bus takes people to Toronto via Collingwood and Barrie. Aboutown Northlink only makes a trip between Owen Sound and London three times a week.

People wanting to get to Orangeville, KitchenerWaterloo, Guelph, Hamilton or other cities must transfer to another bus in Toronto or London. It can be a long trip.

The provincial government should step up and do something about this transportation shortage. More should be done to encourage bus companies to make the trek to and from Owen Sound.

Part of the problem, it seems, is Ontario’s current regulatory framework for intercity bus transportation.

Companies must apply to the Ontario Highway Transport Board to receive a permit before it can operate a new route.

John Emberson, president of Coach Canada, said the process is time consuming and expensive. The applicant must provide a business plan, among other things, to the board.

Other companies can object to the permit request, he said, and the board will often side with the firm that currently offers the same or a similar route.

The process limits competition, he said, and can allow some companies to hold a monopoly on certain routes.

Coach Canada, which owns more than 200 buses, is among the companies lobbying the province to deregulate the system.

Alberta and Manitoba have done it. Alberta implemented a new modernized framework in 2011. Companies there now have the option of running a smaller bus for certain routes or creating a flexible schedule without, as happened in the past, having their application objected to by existing carriers, which would have triggered a full-blown hearing.

It’s time for Ontario to take a serious look at doing the same.

There are also calls from outside of the industry for the province to make changes to improve Ontario’s regional transportation network.

Owen Sound Mayor Deb Haswell, for one, has called on the province to explore ways to encourage more buses to run routes to the city.

The Southwest Economic Alliance (SWEA), meanwhile, is calling on both the provincial and federal governments “to work together to plan and adequately fund a regional transportation network.”

A summit, with politicians, transportation companies and advocacy groups, is scheduled for Nov. 14.

“The objective is to generate cooperation, planning and policy development which will lead to more transportation in southwestern Ontario,” SWEA says.

It is our hope that SWEA will have luck with its campaign.

However, it’s important that Owen Sound also benefit from any improved regional transportation system.

Without changes, the city could become even more isolated from the rest of southern Ontario.

jillumbach Advocacy

Owen Sound police board to ponder taxi fare hike

By Denis Langlois, Sun Times, Owen Sound

Thursday, October 3, 2013 10:19:01 EDT AM

The chairman of Owen Sound’s police service board says there is still time for people to comment on a proposal to hike the cost of taxi fares in the city.

Gary Levine says the board has heard from taxi operators who are asking that the bylaw that regulates fares be changed so that all companies must charge a flat rate of $9 per trip, taxes included, within city limits.

The bylaw now allows taxi companies to charge a maximum of $8 per ride. Some operators charge $6.

Levine said the board has not yet received comments from the public, something he said he welcomes.

“The more people that provide feedback the better so that we’re not making the decision in isolation,” he said in an interview.

Without public comments, a motion to increase fares to $9 could be made at the next Owen Sound Police Service board meeting on Oct. 23, he said.

Francesca Dobbyn, executive director of the United Way of Bruce Grey, said she is concerned about increases in taxi fares, especially since the “most marginalized” people typically rely on them the most.

“For a lot of people, it’s just more of a burden on people who simply don’t have the money in their budgets to adjust to that burden,” she said.

The proposed increase also comes at a time when the city plans to increase bus fares by 10% in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and reduce routes from four to three, she said.

“Those issues should not be dealt with in isolation,” she said.

Rob Taylor, owner of Redline Taxi in Owen Sound, said he would like to see all cab operators charging the same price.

“We have to have a little bit of an increase to keep up with gas prices, insurance, maintenance, and to make sure that our drivers get a fair share as well,” he said.

Taxi fare prices are set by the Owen Sound Police Service board. The bylaw has set a maximum fare of $8 since at least 2002.

Levine said people wanting to provide feedback on the proposed fare increase should do so by Oct. 23.

They can do so by e-mailing Levine at glevine@docpc.com or the board’s administrative assistant Kelly Jo Calver at kcalver@owensoundpolice.com.