Who We Are

Fair Rent Ontario is a cross-sectoral coalition powered by renters, legal advocates, healthcare professionals, and community organizations united by our goal: Full rent control for all renters. We believe every renter deserves a stable home and a secure future — and that means closing Ontario’s three rent control loopholes:

1. The 2018 Rent Control Exemption, which allows unlimited rent increases in units first occupied after Nov. 15 2018
2. Vacancy Decontrol, which lets landlords dramatically raise rents by any amount between tenancies
3. Above Guideline Increases which allow landlords to apply for rent increases beyond the annual guideline in rent controlled units

How Loopholes Harm Our Communities

These rent control loopholes do more than raise housing costs and contribute to the mass loss of existing affordable rental units. They fuel deeper social crises:

• Healthcare: High rents drive evictions and homelessness, worsening chronic health conditions. Plus, with Ontario’s shelter system operating at 97% capacity and the over 80,000 Ontarians who experienced homelessness in 2024, our emergency healthcare systems are overwhelmed and bearing the enormous cost of the rent control loopholes.
• Food Banks: Ontario continues to break food bank records year-after-year and three out of four food bank users are market renters, the majority of whom have less than $100 left each month after paying rent.
• Fair Wages & Income Security: Wage gains and increases to social assistance mean little as rent hikes swallow them whole. Without full rent control, renters cannot save and poverty becomes a permanent condition for many.
• Families: Child poverty is on the rise and it is driven by unaffordable housing as low-income families increasingly spend 50% or more their income to rent.
• Disabled Ontarians: There will be no such thing as a Universally Accessible Ontario for people with disabilities without rent control, as uncontrolled rent is a major reason why so many are unhoused and living in inadequate housing.

The Crisis Expands

Over the past decade, rents in Ontario have surged by 55%. Landlords are squeezing renters more than ever—and now, new U.S. tariffs threaten to push costs even higher, tightening tenant household budgets, putting pressure to raise market rents, and worsening the crisis of evictions and homelessness.

Even without the impacts of tariffs, renters are already being devastated by these loopholes:

• 🏗 2018 Rent Control Exemption: In many Ontario cities, renters in new buildings pay 37–50% higher in rent (or in Sudbury, 129%) than those in older, rent-controlled units—simply because their building was first occupied after November 15, 2018.
• 💸 Vacancy Decontrol: In Toronto, where nearly half of Ontario renters live, a newly vacant unit will cost $694/month more on average. This loophole also creates powerful incentives for renovictions and fraudulent “own-use” evictions to push sitting tenants out.
• 🔧 Above Guideline Increases (AGIs): Landlords are using AGIs to pass off their repair costs and cosmetic upgrades onto tenants. And since there’s no way to ensure an AGI’s expiration is enforced, tenants can pay thousands more over the duration of their tenancy than they should have if they were truly protected by the rent control they are supposed to have.

US tariffs are a crisis beyond our control. Rent control loopholes, however, are policy choices—and they can be changed to both protect renters from the effects of the tariffs and to provide urgent relief and stability for all renters in Ontario.

Rent Control Is the Solution We Need

Governments often argue that rent controls impede the creation of new housing, but research confirms that modern rent controls do not discourage new rental construction. To make matters worse for Ontario, the 2018 Exemption hasn’t brought affordability—it’s brought rentals with sky-high rents. This has been catastrophic for renters across Ontario. In Sudbury, a post-2018 unit on average will cost you more than double that of rent controlled units. In Toronto, where almost half of renters in Ontario live, it’s 50% more. Today, a quarter of all Toronto condos are exempt from rent control following a 35% increase in rents over 6 years.

In place of full rent control, Ontario has favoured building housing as the main solution for the housing crisis. But building more housing is a long-term solution and its success depends on the success of short-term solutions, like full rent control. New housing means little when majority of renters cannot afford to rent them.

Full rent control, on the other hand, is the most immediate and affordable action Ontario can take to tackle the housing crisis. It costs the government nothing and would create desperately needed stability for unprotected renters fearing their next rent hike and it would provide real protection for the 870,000 households in Ontario currently renting affordably.

Instead, we are applying a band-aid to a housing emergency that requires a fulsome treatment. The three loopholes are like open wounds in Ontario’s housing system—wounds that are getting worse with time. If we don’t heal these wounds—or close these loopholes—then:

🟣 The 2018 Exemption will keep driving up rents in new buildings beyond what renters can afford
🔶 Vacancy Decontrol will continue bleeding affordable units out of the market
🟣 Above Guideline Increases (AGIs) will keep undermining rent control protections and pushing renters into deeper insecurity

What’s Next? Fair Rent Ontario is Making the Case for Rent Control — More Than Ever!

The Ontario government may continue to be hostile to rent control, but Fair Rent Ontario is not backing down. In fact, this moment only strengthens our resolve. As rents rise, homelessness grows, and the impact of U.S. tariffs loom, Ontario needs full rent control more than ever.

These may seem like perilous times, especially to be a renter. But we’ve seen a moment like this before. During another economic crisis in the 1970s, the federal government introduced a national anti-inflation program—pressuring provinces to implement rent control. It worked then—and it can work again!

Even now, under difficult conditions, we know what’s possible. And we’re ready to:
📈 Expand our actions to tackle the housing crisis with our new Renter Mandate Letter campaign

📢 Share the stories of renters impacted by the loopholes
🤝 Build alliances with communities fighting for housing justice

🗣️ Pressure politicians—provincially and federally—for rent full control
✊ Organize across sectors to unify the call for full rent control

We believe every renter should be protected by rent control, no matter when their building was built, if their unit was previously vacant, or if they’ve been hit by an AGI. Together, we can build a province where every renter has a stable home and a secure future!

📝 Sign and share our new updated full rent control letter campaign:
Protect Renters from U.S. Tariffs With Full Rent Control!

👉 Send your letter here