Advocacy and regulation work.
Hamilton has seen a significant drop in applications to evict tenants for renovations in the first year of an anti-renoviction bylaw, a city staff report shows. Applications by landlords to evict tenants for renovations fell to 23 in 2025, down 80 per cent from the 119 applications in 2024. The bylaw goes further than the requirements of provincial law, requiring landlords who want to evict tenants for renovations to pay a fee, prove that tenants have to leave for the work to be done, and to provide alternate accommodation or compensation for displaced tenants during renovations. Hamilton’s bylaw was the first in Ontario, and has since been copied in Toronto and other cities. The tenant group ACORN had urged the city to pass the bylaw and in a Spectator interview, Amanda Dick, downtown chair of ACORN, said, “In my case, and the people that I talk to, we feel much more secure in our homes since the bylaw’s been passed.”