Campaign aims to raise awareness of tenants' rights before 2010 Olympics

The City of Vancouver will launch a new public awareness campaign later this month to educate landlords who want their tenants out leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Martha Lewis, executive director of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre, said it is illegal if landlords force tenants out without sufficient reason and rent the places to tourists visiting the city to watch the Olympics.

The city is working with the advisory centre, a Vancouver-based non-profit organization aimed at promoting tenants' rights, to roll out its new campaign at the end of February, Lewis said.

There are hefty penalties for rent hikes above the legal limit, Lewis said, the details of which will be announced when the campaign launches.

"We have found increasingly that landlords who are called mom and pop landlords — as opposed to professional ones — do not know the law," Lewis said.

Boris Kuznets, who owns a half-dozen condo properties in Vancouver and bordering Richmond, said he hopes to fill them with Olympic tourists even though local tenants have been living in the units.

"I gave my tenants notice. When the Olympics come, they are going to vacate [their units] or pay the same amount that somebody else will pay," Kuznets said.

Kuznets said he plans to earn $10,000 to $15,000 from each of his suites by renting them out during the Games.

But he said he will not kick the current tenants out if they cannot find other places to live during the Olympics.