Buildings needed for renters, not Calgary businesses, protesters say

Members of the organization ACORN were set up outside the downtown Calgary office of Mainstreet Equity on Wednesday. The group says the company is buying properties that should be made into affordable housing.

A group of protesters demonstrated outside the office of a Calgary real estate company on Wednesday, a business they say is purchasing properties that should be made into affordable housing instead.

The gathering, made up of members of ACORN – a national organization of low to moderate-income Canadians who fight for a variety of issues including housing, tenant rights and other issues – was calling on Mainstreet Equity to stop its plan to buy apartment buildings.

Nestille Sobieraj, a member of ACORN, says the business uses "corporate landlords" to take properties out of the affordable housing market.

"We are here with some demands, both for Mainstreet and other landlords in the city as well as for the government as well," she told CTV News in an interview on Wednesday.

"We want rent control – capping the rent increase at two per cent. We would also like a rental registry so that everyone knows exactly how much the previous tenant was paying before they left to see how much it's increased before the new tenant has come in."

She also says that more and more buildings in Calgary are being sold to corporate owners who either raise rents or fail to maintain the buildings.

"It's just been extremely difficult to find some affordable place to live in the city and it seems that any place that is affordable is not very well maintained," Sobieraj said.

"It's just not very fair."

Mainstreet Equity, in a response to a request for comment from CTV News, said it also believes in affordable housing but external forces on the market, like caps, have the potential to make matters worse.

"We believe that housing supply is a key determinant of rental pricing, and the body of evidence to date clearly proves that rent control measures can actually create barriers to new development and worsen affordability challenges," said Mainstreet's head of communications Jesse Greenwell in a statement.

ACORN is also calling on every level of government to provide at least 1.2 million affordable homes in the next decade.