Busy 2020 for Sudbury legal clinic as Landlord Tenant Board clears hearing backlog

Demand for services at the Sudbury Community Legal Clinic has been so great this year, the staff hasn't been able to help everybody who needs it.

The clinic provides legal assistance to low income earners in Greater Sudbury who are dealing with issues related to housing or income maintenance. 

Most of the demand in 2020 was for legal help with housing issues, particularly over the past few months with eviction prevention.

According to Allison Woods, acting executive director, between September and December this year, the Sudbury clinic served more than three times as many clients facing eviction, compared with the same time period last year.

The province had issued an eviction moratorium early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, but in October, hearings for the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board kicked back up. 

That's when the staff at Sudbury Community Legal Clinic just couldn't keep up, and the demand for legal help around housing more than tripled compared to 2019 stats.

"Even with every available lawyer who does housing in our clinic, working all day every day, just on that, we were unable to meet the demand," Woods said.

"There were hearing blocks that we could not attend, and people that went without services because there was just more demand that we were physically able to provide."

Prior to COVID-19 there had been one full day of hearings scheduled per week with the Landlord and Tenant Board in Sudbury. Woods says at that time they were able to have one or two of their lawyers attend those hearings to provide representation for clients who had files with the clinic.

Then in October, the schedule for the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) hearings increased to as many as 20 different hearing blocks at the same time, all day every day.

"It was extremely demanding on the staff, and even more so demanding on clients, often who didn't have the necessary technology or equipment to participate in these hearings to begin with," Woods said.

In November — depending on the region in Ontario — there was an increase of between 21 and 300 per cent in eviction applications, compared to November 2019.

Ripple effect expected for housing demand

Woods is concerned there will be an increased demand for housing in Greater Sudbury in the early part of 2021.

That's because there have been issues with tenants not being able to attend LTB hearings for a variety of reasons.

"A large number of whom have not received notice that they even have a hearing in the first place," Woods said, adding that others are unable to participate because they don't have access to the technology or equipment needed to attend.

"Then they're going to be coming to us as well at that point to find out what to do and to review these decisions where they weren't able to attend."

"We're concerned that there's going to be a huge increase in the [housing] demand, when all these eviction orders from October, November and December start making their way out, and people realize that they had hearings that they missed," she said.

Concerns for income maintenance in 2021

Meanwhile, the caseload for income maintenance legal help at the Sudbury Community Legal Clinic has been steady over the past year.

Legal issues around income could include problems with disability benefits, employment services and/or workers compensation.

Woods is concerned the clinic staff could be overrun coming up in 2021, as more of these hearings are scheduled by the Social Benefits Tribunal.

The Social Benefits Tribunal is the administrative tribunal in Ontario that hears matters to do with social assistance. It has not been scheduling as many hearings, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and having fewer members available to hear the matters.

The legal clinic in Sudbury is still waiting for hearing dates to be assigned for appeals that were filed in 2019.

"Because that tribunal slowed down so much...one of our concerns is that when and if it does gear back up again, that's also going to put a demand on the staff," Woods said.

"We're a little worried about what the future of that looks like."