The territory’s highest court overturned a rental officer’s decision that the YWCA acted wrongfully when allowing a tenant to be removed from a housing unit it was renting the RCMP.
Back in 2019, the territory’s chief rental officer had decided a single father with two daughters had been wrongfully evicted, citing the Residential Tenancies Act.
But in its decision, the NWT’s Supreme Court ruled the YWCA’s housing did not fall under the act and overturned the rental officer’s decision.
The father was in the Supportive Housing Program run by the YWCA, which had been hosted in Rockhill Apartment building until it burned down in 2018.
YWCA then had to rent a private unit to house the father. But after complaints from other tenants, Northview REIT, who owns the building the YWCA was renting from, informed the YWCA the man would have to leave.
The YWCA said they would provide the man other housing, and asked the man to move, at which point, he broke back into the unit and refused to leave. RCMP removed him from the unit.
Justice Karan Shaner ruled the Residential Tenancies Act, which sets rules about landlord-tenant relationships – does not apply to housing provided by the YWCA as part of its Supportive Housing Program.
