Parkdale tenants demand no COVID evictions from MetCap and Golden Equity

QUEEN’S PARK RALLY JUNE 9 at 2PM SHARP!

This morning Parkdale tenants at 1475 King made the trip to Scarborough to deliver their demands to landlord Golden Equity. Tenants at 1475 King have been on rent strike since April 1 demanding Golden Equity negotiate with their committee regarding conditions at the building. Roger Steele of Golden Equity deferred to the building’s owners, but tenants made it clear they insist on dealing with the landlord as a group and that they will not accept COVID evictions now or ever.

A larger group of tenants from nine MetCap buildings in Parkdale marched on the local MetCap office this afternoon. When the local property manager refused to accept tenants’ demands, tenants reached MetCap CEO Brent Merrill by phone. Merrill responded to his tenants’ demand for no COVID evictions by claiming, “MetCap nothing to do with this”. Before hanging up on his tenants, Merrill lied saying he has no power to take evictions off the table for tenants unable to pay rent during the COVID crisis. Adding further insult, MetCap then called Toronto Police Services. Four TPS officers were quickly deployed in response to tenants attempting to collectively deliver a demand letter.

Today Parkdale tenants resolved to expand our organizing and escalate our actions. Parkdale is home to tens of thousands of working class people facing the same struggles, Toronto home to hundreds of thousands. We know we are not alone in our buildings, neighbourhood, and city. But we also understand that for us as working class people our collective strength is accessed by organizing together. At the end of today’s access we safely distributed Keep Your Rent newsletters to share with neighbours in our buildings. We also committed to joining with tenants from across the city on June 9 at Queen’s Park to demand no COVID evictions.