Parkdale Tenants Announce Rent Strike

March 1 – Parkdale tenants from 75 Spencer Avenue held a demonstration at their building and hung banners from their balconies today to mark the first day of their rent strike. Tenants are withholding rent payments in protest of an above guideline rent increase totaling 5.4 per cent sought by property manager Metcap Living and building owner Kin Pong Chung.

“We are withholding rent to show the landlords that there will be a high cost to not meeting our demand that they withdraw this above guideline rent increase,” said Mahmoud Ahmed, a tenant at 75 Spencer Avenue. “We won’t allow Metcap and Mr. Chung to push us out of our homes in Parkdale with a rent increase that we cannot afford.” 

The rent strike at 75 Spencer Avenue comes nearly eight years after more than 300 Parkdale tenants living in five Metcap buildings went on rent strike against above guideline increases from May to July 2017, and won. For years after the 2017 rent strike, Metcap stopped applying for above guideline rent increases at its Parkdale buildings and in 2021, the company sold most of its Parkdale portfolio.

“When tenants won that rent strike, it had a material benefit to every tenant across dozens of buildings in the neighbourhood,” said Bryan Doherty of the neighbourhood group Parkdale Organize. “With above guideline rent increases again on the rise in Parkdale, our neighbours at 75 Spencer are drawing the line and demonstrating the renewed strength that working-class people will need in the struggles to come.”

In 2025, a petition signed by a majority of tenants from the 72-unit mid-rise building and delivered to Metcap’s head office was ignored. Earlier this week, a Metcap regional property manager attended the building and personally removed signs tenants had posted on their apartment doors that read “I will not pay rent on March 1. Together we can stop the rent increase.” Tenants re-posted new signs on their doors later that same day.

“We won’t be ignored or intimidated by Metcap,” said tenant Fazal Muhammad. “We are united in our demand that the landlords withdraw the above guideline rent increase.”