Anything from a joyful family development to a paralyzing tragedy can prompt someone to box up two decades of memories and leave their home.

For Darlene Pollard, a local senior citizen, the motivation presented itself as an abrupt, unwelcome shock.

Almost a month ago, Pollard and the occupants of nine other apartment units in a building at 602 Cook St. received written notice that they must move by Sept. 30.

The official Yukon government document they were given is entitled “2-Month Notice to End Tenancy”.

No-cause evictions are legal only in the Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Yukon NDP held a news conference Thursday morning to further its push to have the practice outlawed in the territory.

Reporters were told the Cook Street tenants’ one- and two-bedroom units will be re-rented for an additional $500 and $600 per month respectively.

None will be renovated, the NDP said.

“I was given two months to pack up 20 years of my life,” an at-times emotional Pollard told the news conference. It took place outside the Second Avenue entrance of the Jim Smith Building.

“It’s emotional stuff,” NDP MLA Emily Tredger quietly told Pollard as she placed a comforting arm around her.

“I am a displaced senior with no home for the forseeable future,” Pollard told media representatives after she had regained her composure.

“I am in the precarious position of wondering what the future holds for me.”

While she is able to move into her daughter’s home, Pollard said, that opens up a whole new set of complications, including potential shared-living stresses.

She said she wonders how long she will have to be what she called an obligation to her family.

“The current government doesn’t see this as a problem,” Pollard said of the continuing legality of no-cause evictions.

Fellow senior and evictee Richard Lawrence, who has called the building home for 10 years, pays $1,080 per month. Through the help of a network of friends, he has found alternate quarters to move to.

“We are not here to take a political stand but to make an ethical stand,” he told the news conference. “We care that people are treated equally.”

Lawrence doesn’t blame the tenants’ plight on the building’s former longtime owners, who retired and sold it about a year ago.

He also acknowledged that generally, there are tenants whose behaviour fully justifies their being evicted.

“I have had nothing but great landlords to deal with,” he said. “They are not all bad.”

As for the government not having banned no-cause evictions, Lawrence said, “I don’t happen to believe the Liberal party is uncaring. I just don’t understand the inaction ... it’s a disgrace.”

Though the building owners’ action is compltely legal, he added, “This is one case that needs to be fixed.”

In discussing the owners’ decision with them, Lawrence encountered a familiar refrain: the rent caps the government has imposed (3.3 per cent this year), coupled with rising maintenance costs, have left them with little choice.

“I don’t see rent caps as having a bearing on evictions without cause,” Lawrence said, calling the landlords’ justification “crocodile tears.

“Tenants need to have a voice in matters that concern their protection, well-being and living situation.”

The building owners have asked him to show his own apartment to prospective tenants if no one representing the owners is available to do so, he said.

Lawrence and others are working to find alternate premises for the Cook Street tenants about to lose their place to live – which, he said, has developed a genuine community spirit.

There’s a mix of seniors and younger people in the building, with no one drawing social assistance, Lawrence said.

One resident has lived there for 23 years. The tenants have no leases with the building owners, he added.

“We are not here to pose as victims,” he said.

Lawrence said he has tried to take their plight to Yukon MP Brendan Hanley and to Premier Sandy Silver. In the latter case, he was referred to Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn.

The minister’s staff in turn referred him to the Yukon Residential Tenancies Office, Lawrence said.

As Tredger described it, “An entire building is being evicted. It didn’t matter that these tenants have done nothing wrong.”

This is the third “mass-eviction” situation in the downtown area the NDP has been made aware of, said the first-term MLA for Whitehorse Centre.

She is certain there are many similar stories.

“We went to the Liberals and said, ‘You have to ban evictions without cause,’ and the Liberals said no,” Tredger said.

The Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition also supports banning the practice, she added.

This is a grim story of higher profit motivation, Tredger said, “and the government is happy to have it happen over and over again.

“The Liberal government could end this today by banning evictions without cause.”

She is aware of “numerous cases” of tenants pushing back against rent hikes simply being handed eviction notices.

“I know many people are afraid to fight their rent increases,” she said.

“It is building after building after building of people being evicted. Enough is enough.”

While it’s too late to protect Pollard and Lawrence from the practice, Tredger said, the government is able to help many rentors avoid similar circumstances.

She also advocates the creation of a tenants’ advocacy group, something she called “a huge benefit to Yukoners.”

A spokesperson for the Cook Street building’s owners advised the Star Thursday she would have no public comment on the evictions until after she has consulted her lawyer.

The Star asked cabinet communications staff to respond to the tenants’ and the NDP’s concerns.

“To end no-cause evictions would require an amendment to the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act – it cannot be repealed by regulation,” said a statement that was also sent to other media outlets.

“ Changing legislation is a lengthy process.

“As we have explained to the NDP several times, given the broad impact of this legislation, changing it responsibly would require extensive engagement with landlords, tenants and other stakeholders.

“Given that the NDP was in a position to table amendments to this act in both the fall of 2021 and the spring of 2022 but chose not to, it’s clearly not that much of a priority for them.”

Tredger disagrees with the government’s stance that outlawing no-cause evictions would necessitate opening the act.

She argued the government has made other changes to landlord-tenant laws by way of cabinet regulations.

“I don’t see why they can’t do it again,” she told the news conference.

On Aug. 9, the territory’s Safe at Home Society published 10 calls to action designed to help tenants across the territory. They included changing the law to make no-cause evictions illegal.

The Star has made arrangements to discuss the situation with the Yukon Residential Landlord Association next week.

The latest territorial data report that of the past April, the median rent for all types of buildings in Whitehorse was $1,300 monthly, meaning half the premises rent for below that figure and half above.

The vacancy rate was reported as 1.4 per cent.

In April 2022, Whitehorse’s median rent for buildings with three or more rental units was $1,150, while the vacancy rate was 0.8 per cent.