Working with Landlords The Rural Reality

Housing Support Worker Clarenville-Bonavista Region Tracey Coady Housing Support Worker Clarenville-Bonavista Region

Rural Realities Landlords are often familiar with our clients Landlords know each other Sometimes other tenants or neighbours “warn” landlords about a particular individual Unsuccessful tenancies directly impacts our reputation & relationships with landlords Smaller pool of landlords in rural, so as more clients get evicted it could potentially burn all bridges with landlords.

Rural Realities With no supportive housing in rural, we have to rely on private landlords to rent to our most complex, hard to house clients We, as HSWs, then try our best to support these clients even though some require far more supports than we can provide These particular clients (who need supportive housing) often get evicted despite all our efforts, support, and good intentions. These are the clients who burn our bridges with landlords

Rural Realities Rents in some rural regions are actually higher than in urban areas due to our close proximity to “mega” projects (Hebron Project, Vale) Lack of bedsitters and board & lodging placements in rural Some rural regions don’t have any boarding houses or bedsitters at all, and those that do, will only accept students or oil workers as “boarders’ in their homes. (This puts clients at risk of becoming homeless as often times these are the only kinds of accommodations that AES will approve for our clients). Some apartments in rural are not “registered” apartments and thus landlords refuse to rent these apartments to clients on income support

So how do we actually house people in Rural NL? By building strong, trusting relationships with landlords By supporting both landlords and clients at the same time to promote successful tenancies News travels quickly in small town so its important to ensure all our dealings with landlords are good ones Even when housing placements fail despite all our efforts & when eviction cannot be prevented, it’s important to still support the landlord anyway we can and continue a professional rapport with them We need landlords on our side more than they need us, so developing & maintaining good relationships with landlord is essential!!

Questions or Comments?