Cynthia Black believes her rent has been rigged.
Since 2022, the Toronto resident says she has twice faced annual rent increases of either seven or 11 per cent — depending on the lease type her household was offered — in two Livmore buildings owned by GWL Realty Advisors, a division of Canada Life.
“The hikes have never made any sense. And when myself and other tenants sat down and asked [GWLRA] to please stop raising rents so high, they told us they use software called YieldStar to help determine our rents,” she told CBC’s The National.
But in June, she says YieldStar came up again — only this time it was in the news, as the FBI was investigating the company that owns it, RealPage, and landlords who use it for alleged collusion, price-fixing and artificially inflating rents across the U.S.
Everything that is necessary for survival (food, water, and shelter at a minimum) should be a public good and not managed by profit-seeking individuals or corporations.
Agreed, but we’re a long way off, our politicians are still just enriching their friends at the publics expense