For National Housing Day, Whitehorse residents and advocates gathered outside the legislative assembly on Tuesday to protest no-cause evictions and the expiration of rent control in the territory.

The group of about 20 people, organized by the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition (YAPC), were also asking the Yukon government to shift its approach to the current housing crunch.

“Today, we’re calling for a name change from ‘National Housing Day,’ to ‘the National Right to Housing Day,’” YAPC co-chair Charlotte Hrenchuk told the crowd, who’d gathered with picket signs which they held up to passing street traffic.

“Housing is a human right, which has been accepted by all levels of government here in this territory. However, our housing policies and programs do not reflect this.”

National Housing Day started in 2000, two years after the federal government declared a national homelessness emergency.

Currently, more than 200 people are known to be unhoused in Whitehorse.

Hrenchuk said housing is seen as a commodity, not an essential human right or need, and government attitudes need to change.

That means more non-market housing, she said. Leaving prices to the private sector, she said, won’t level out housing costs any time soon.

The average price of a house in Whitehorse was a record-high $701,200 in the third quarter of this year, according to the Yukon Bureau of Statistics.

For those who can’t even dream of buying a house right now, rental costs are also a concern.

The YAPC released a report this year that found “the rising cost of rental housing remains the most significant affordability challenge for low- and modest-income Yukoners.”

The bureau found the median rent for all types of units in Whitehorse in 2021 was $1,233.

Though rally-goers were broadly pushing for a paradigm shift for housing as a social asset instead of a financial one, they had specific concerns too: rent control and evictions.

Kate Mechan is the executive director of Safe at Home Society. She spoke with the Star at the rally about how she wants the Yukon’s Residential Landlord and Tenant Act reviewed.

“It’s no longer anecdotal that tenants are being adversely impacted by certain things in the Tenancy Act,” she said. “For example, no-cause evictions have a detrimental impact.”

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

“Unlike other places, and we live in one of the coldest places in the country, people can be evicted at any time, including in the middle of the winter,” Mechan added.

“So we have families currently who receive a no-cause eviction and have absolutely nowhere to go.”

She also said rent control needs to be reviewed and kept permanently.

Rent caps were brought in as part of an agreement between the Yukon’s NDP and Liberals in 2021. However, the NDP-led initiative, which allows landlords to raise rent each year by the annual Consumer Price Index figure for Whitehorse (3.3 per cent in 2020), will expire along with the two-party agreement after January 2023.

“As soon as we don’t allow for a certain amount of control,” Mechan said, “we’re going to put people in situations where they can’t afford their rent, in a landscape where people already can’t afford their rent.”

Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn told the legislature this month that the government is not looking to renew rent control after January, calling it a temporary measure.

Mostyn spoke with rally-goers Tuesday on his way to the floor of the legislature.

He told them he agrees the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act needed review, but rally-goers pressed him, saying the government has said it would review the act for two years now.

Mostyn also reiterated that rent control is likely on its way out. Rally-goers, including Mechan and Hrenchuk, told him rent control is as important as removing no-cause evictions from the Landlord and Tenant Act.

Mechan told the Star rent control needs to be reviewed alongside the act, and all stakeholders – government, landlords, tenants and advocates – should be involved in that process.

The rally ended before assembly proceedings began inside.

The rally-goers moved to the gallery, where they were welcomed as guests of the legislative assembly for National Housing Day.

None of the issues raised at the rally were raised or debated Tuesday.