Evicted during the pandemic, a Toronto nurse pleads for fairness
It was just past 10 p.m. last Monday when Gigi, a registered nurse, returned from work exhausted to the tiny room she was renting in a Toronto home.
About 45 minutes later, Toronto police were knocking on her bedroom door saying her landlord wanted her "out" and that she had to leave "now."
"I called my friend. I didn't know what to do. I told (the officers), 'I am a nurse. I just got home from work. It's late,'" said Gigi, who had started her shift at 7 a.m. that day.
"They just said: 'We don't care. Your landlord wants you out, and you have to go now.'"
Gigi is the nurse's nickname. The Star isn't publishing the names of the landlady or the nurse to protect Gigi's privacy as she continues to care for some of the community's most seriously ill, non-COVID-19 patients.
"I feel totally humiliated by this experience, and I don't want to draw attention to myself," she explained. "I need to be able to go in to work to do my job, completely focused on my patients."
The landlady, a middle-aged woman, said she "had no option" but to evict Gigi because she was "putting the health, safety and well-being of myself and others in the house at risk."
She said Gigi had not told her that she was sick and self-isolating for two weeks in her room in mid-March. (Gigi has twice tested negative for COVID-19.) And she said Gigi was threatening the safety of others by keeping her nursing bag with her scrubs and shoes in a broom closet in the kitchen without telling her.
During an argument over the nursing bag, Gigi admits she lashed out "very unprofessionally" at her landlady.
"I told her selfish people die first. If I get the coronavirus, I will share it with her," Gigi said. "I know that was wrong and that I shouldn't have said that. But I was so frustrated and stressed out by this woman."
The landlady said she appreciates "the importance of front-line workers," but that was "the last straw."
"When she threatened me, I could have evicted her right away, because my safety was in danger," she said about the incident on the evening of Saturday March 28. "But I decided not to do that right away " I gave her until Monday."
Gigi, who wrote to Premier Doug Ford, Health Minister Christine Elliott, Toronto Mayor John Tory and NDP MPP Peter Tabuns about her experience last week, says she is telling her story "so no one else can lose their home like I did."
Only Tabuns responded to Gigi's call for help.
"This story is really wrenching," said Tabuns, who spoke to Gigi several times on the phone last week and referred her to policy officials in his office.
"We don't think people should be getting thrown out on the street in the middle of a pandemic," he said in an interview. "People who are fighting to save lives under difficult conditions should not have to worry that their homes will be gone when they finish their shift.
"We need to have the premier step up, bring in legislation to protect people - even on a temporary basis - just to make sure no one has to go through this. We're certainly willing to work with him " and pass legislation quickly, if he's willing to do that and make sure people have protection."
On March 18, the Ford government obtained an order from Ontario's chief justice to suspend residential evictions during the pandemic. But as the Star reported last month, the order protects only those covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, leaving out thousands of renters such as Gigi who share a bathroom and kitchen with the owner or leaseholder of the house or apartment where they live.
Tenant advocates and legal aid lawyers say they have been fielding an increasing number of calls during the crisis from frightened renters not covered by the provincial order.
The Toronto Police Service doesn't comment on individual cases, but a spokesperson said officers don't conduct evictions. They do, however, respond to calls from people who rent rooms in their homes and want these "unwanted guests" to leave, said Meaghan Gray.
"Our officers act with as much leniency as they can, but the only discretion they are able to exercise is whether or not to issue a trespass to property notice," she said in an email Saturday. "We would agree these situations are very unfortunate, but there is a gap in the law and it is not within the power of police to fix it."
Gigi, 29, came to Toronto from the Philippines in 2013 and worked as a personal support worker for minimum wage until she obtained certification in January to practise as a registered nurse in Ontario. She was hired immediately at a local hospital to work on a busy ward assessing patients, transporting them for medical procedures, giving medication, changing wound dressings, inserting IVs, turning, bathing and feeding them.
She said she rented the room in January for $550 a month "because it was close to work, and it was all I could afford coming out of school."
She acknowledges the living situation in the two-storey brick house she shared with a young teacher, a shop clerk and her landlady had been tense for several months. Gigi carries a double-wrapped bag containing her nursing scrubs and shoes to the hospital each day and changes into street clothes at work before going home. When her bag went missing from the kitchen broom closet on March 28, she suspected her landlady had taken it out of spite.
After the landlady denied any knowledge of the bag, Gigi said she felt she had no alternative but to call police.
High school teacher Tamara Kunovac, 27, one of Gigi's roommates, said police, "who acted like they thought we were wasting their time," eventually found the bag sitting on top of a trash can outside the house. Both women believe the landlady put the bag there.
"It was a very unpleasant situation that made us both very upset," Kunovac said in an interview.
The landlady told the Star Sunday that she didn't realize Gigi's bag was in the broom closet, where she also keeps her reusable grocery bags. Since health officials are advising shoppers to use only disposable bags for groceries, the landlady said she threw out all of her bags that day.
After police left, Gigi said she felt embarrassed and angry. She yelled her intemperate comment at the landlady and stormed out.
Later that evening, the landlady sent Gigi a text message.
"You threatened me that you will give me the coronavirus. I called police, and they said I can evict you. So get ready to leave my house right away," the message read.
The landlady followed up the text with a handwritten note she slipped under Gigi's door ordering her out of her room by noon March 30, less than 48 hours later.
But Gigi was working that day. She started the 12-hour shift at 7 a.m. with an extended "daily huddle" with her team where they discussed the proper use of personal protective equipment - gowns, gloves, N95 masks and face shields - "that make it very difficult to breathe."
"The hospital had started to see a few COVID patients. Some were in ICU. We all need to be wearing masks and shields now to protect our very ill patients who have multiple morbidities," she said.
It was a very busy shift and Gigi said she had to stay late to complete her patients' charts. She had no time to think about her landlady's eviction threat and said she felt protected by the provincial order suspending evictions.
When police arrived later that evening, Gigi said she was "shocked they showed no compassion."
A friend from Oakville picked her up around midnight while police waited in a cruiser outside for her to leave. The next day she moved into a furnished suite downtown that is charging her $1,800 to stay for three weeks.
She has since found a room in an Airbnb closer to work for $750 a month and is trying to get her money back on the downtown suite before she moves.
"The laws should be changed. The premier said no one gets evicted. Why are we not protected? My landlord makes one call to police and I'm gone. Why is there no place for us to call?" she asked.
Mayor Tory is also troubled by Gigi's story.
"The idea that any landlord would kick out a nurse at this time out of fear of COVID-19 is completely unacceptable," he said in a statement to the Star Saturday. "I know people are scared, but this is no time for people to treat anyone this poorly, especially the nurses we are relying on to help fight COVID-19."
Since the city doesn't have power over landlord-tenant matters, Tory said he "will be raising this issue with the province and urging them to consider all possible actions to prevent this from happening."
When asked what he would do to help vulnerable renters such as Gigi during the pandemic, Ford pleaded with landlords and tenants "to work together to ensure no one is left without a roof over their head during this challenging time."
But he offered no promise of legal relief.
"Our health-care workers are on the front line of COVID-19 every single day, making extraordinary sacrifices to keep the rest of us safe," he said in a statement Saturday. "We need everyone to recognize the important work that our front-line health workers are doing right now and show them the consideration that is rightfully due to them."
Tabuns said he understands why someone renting out a room in their home or apartment would want the right to get rid of an undesirable renter quickly.
"In normal times, I don't think there would be anyone who would really argue with that," he said. "But these are not normal times. Even on a temporary basis, people need to know they will not come home and be out on the street in the middle of a pandemic."
Laurie Monsebraaten is a Toronto-based reporter covering social justice. Follow her on Twitter: @lmonseb