A Burnaby couple is worried the province’s restrictions on evictions will not adequately protect their family, including an immuno-suppressed grandmother who lives with them.
Nazila, who asked her full name not be used in case future potential landlords look her up, said she and her husband live in an apartment with their son and her mother. Nazila said her mother has been told by her doctor to “cocoon” because of her suppressed immune system and physical impairments.
Nazila said her family has to be particularly careful due to the challenges with her mother’s immune system. During the pandemic, her mother has had to stay in her room, and the family has had to be particularly meticulous when preparing food for her to reduce risks.
But the family, who has lived in the apartment since 2016, was served a two-month eviction notice on March 19, effective at the end of May. They were told their landlord was in a city facing an outbreak in China, and the landlord wanted to come back to Canada and move into their apartment.
“It’s a crisis, and I cannot move right now. It’s very dangerous for us,” Nazila said.
Nazila said her landlord tried to bargain with her – offer her an extra month and let her stay until the end of June in exchange for signing an agreement to move out at that time. When she refused, citing the potential dangers to her family, her landlord reiterated the eviction would then take place at the end of May.
Since then, the provincial government announced a moratorium on new and existing evictions in B.C., but Nazila said she’s anxious the moratorium won’t go far enough.
The May eviction date likely won’t be enforceable unless the pandemic is dramatically diminished by that time. While evictions served before the announcement remain valid, they will not be enforced while B.C. is in a state of emergency, the Ministry of Housing said in a statement.
But Nazila and her family are worried the potential risks of contracting COVID-19 while moving won’t be fully resolved when the province lifts its state of emergency.
The family hopes to see a “grace period” following the state of emergency – a couple of months or more to ensure the pandemic has settled down before allowing evictions.
Nazila said she has filed a dispute with the Residential Tenancy Branch, but she isn’t sure how that will go.
“It’s a lot of anxiety that they added to already-stressed parents,” Nazila said, particularly noting the new stresses of dealing with kids at home all day, working from home and layoffs across the country. “Now we have, on top of that, another stress, which was easy for the government to diminish for us.”
