Two-Tier Tenancies: What B.C.’s Supportive Housing Bill Could Mean for Nova Scotian Tenants
Read about B.C.’s Bill 11 - and the implications it could have for tenants living in non-profit housing in Nova Scotia.
Written by Sydnee Blum | 8 min read
Across Canada, supportive, long-term housing is expanding quickly - and in the middle of a housing crisis, that should be a positive development. More people are being housed, often with services that are supposed to support long-term stability, while providing structure and resources to residents.
But recent changes proposed in British Columbia raise a more complicated question: What kind of housing are we creating, and do people in supportive housing deserve the same rights as other tenants?
The changes in BC suggest that the answer may increasingly be “no”.
Bill 11 and Changes to the RTA
The BC government has introduced amendments to its Residential Tenancy Act through Bill 11. The changes are framed as a response to safety concerns in supportive housing, particularly from non-profit landlords who say they need better tools to deal with crisis situations in their buildings.
These concerns are real. Supportive housing providers are often stretched thin, working in under-resourced workplaces with tenants who are dealing with poverty, trauma, and unmet health needs. But the approach being taken in BC focuses less on strengthening support for tenants and workers, and more on expanding landlord’s power over vulnerable tenants.
If passed, Bill 11 would create carve-outs in the law for “supportive housing providers”, making it easier for them to evict tenants without notice. It would allow for “cooling-off periods,” where tenants can be temporarily evicted from their homes with no notice or due process. It also opens the door to greater control over tenants’ access to their units and their belongings, with fewer procedural safeguards than typically exist under BC’s RTA framework.
Advocates in BC, including legal clinics and tenant organizations, have raised serious concerns about the direction of these changes. They warn that speeding up evictions and reducing oversight does not address safety issues. Instead, it risks pushing people out of housing and into homelessness - often by the very providers who tenants are relying on to get off the streets.
There is also concern about how vague some of the new powers are. When key terms are not clearly defined, and when discretion is given to landlords instead of tenancy officers, the result is often inconsistent and uneven enforcement. Tenants may not know what rules they are expected to follow, or what could lead to losing their housing. That uncertainty matters, especially in environments where the power imbalance between housing providers and tenants are already significant.
Even where the province has stopped short of fully exempting supportive housing from tenancy law, the overall direction is clear. More and more, supportive housing is being treated as a separate category from private landlords, with a different and weaker set of protections.
Supportive housing tenants already face a different reality than many other renters. In some cases, that includes stricter rules around guests, increased monitoring by staff, and the use of “program agreements” that do not offer the same legal protections as leases and put unreasonable requirements on tenants. Currently, tenants have the ability to challenge these program agreements and lease rules using the framework available to them under the RTA. The proposed amendments risk formalizing and expanding that gap by reducing access to these legal frameworks.
The justification is often safety. But many advocates have pointed out that eviction is not a solution to safety concerns. Removing someone from housing does not resolve the underlying issues that led to conflict or crisis. It simply moves those issues elsewhere, often onto the street.
For tenants, the consequences of losing housing are immediate and severe. Once someone is evicted from supportive housing, it can be extremely difficult to secure another unit, particularly in a system with long waitlists and limited supply. Faster evictions, combined with fewer opportunities to challenge decisions, increase the risk of long-term housing instability.
Supportive Housing in Nova Scotia
In recent years, Nova Scotia has also seen a significant expansion of supportive and non-profit housing providers, particularly through federal programs like the Rapid Housing Initiative. Many non-profit organizations have taken on new roles as long-term housing providers, when previously they were running shelters and temporary, transitional housing – which isn’t long-term or included in the RTA. These non-profits sometimes transition from offering services to acting as landlords, with very little support and resources to learn their new rights and responsibilities.
At the same time, there has been growing pressure to apply shelter-style rules in these long-term housing arrangements . That can include restrictions on guests, increased access to units by staff, and the use of agreements that frame housing as conditional on program participation rather than as a tenancy with legal rights.
Some of the patterns we are seeing include:
program agreements being used instead of lease rules, with conditions that tie the tenancy to participation in services determined by the landlord;
lease arrangements like fixed-term leases being used in place of legal evictions, with decisions to evict being framed as service decisions rather than legal processes, and;
expectations that tenants comply with rules that go far beyond standard tenancy obligations.
These approaches blur the line between long-term housing and institutional care. When housing becomes conditional in this way, security of tenure starts to erode, and these tenants begin to feel like what is supposed to be long-term housing is just another transitional stay.
Nova Scotia also has a history of looking to other provinces when shaping housing policy. Changes introduced elsewhere can quickly become models here, especially when governments are searching for easy responses to complex challenges.
What is emerging, in both contexts, is the reinforcing of Nova Scotia’s two-tier tenancy system.
On one side are tenants who benefit from the full protections of residential tenancy law. That includes clear processes for eviction, the right to challenge decisions, and a baseline expectation of stability in their housing. These are generally tenants who are renting on periodic, year-to-year or month-to-month leases.
On the other side are tenants on fixed-term leases who face a very different set of conditions. That can include faster evictions, broader discretion for landlords, and fewer procedural protections like security of tenure.
If supportive housing tenants are increasingly get swept up in this category through carve-outs in the law, it will disproportionately affect people who are already marginalized - including people living in poverty, people who use drugs, and people with disabilities. Effectively creating different levels of rights depending on who you are and what kind of housing you live in.
Moving Forward
The issues raised by supportive housing providers are real, and they should not be dismissed. But weakening tenant protections is not the only tool available. There are other ways to address safety and stability in housing, including better funding and resources for non-profit providers, improved staffing levels, and clearer accountability structures for tenants.
Most importantly, there is a need to ensure that tenants’ rights under the law remain strong and enforceable, regardless of the type of housing someone lives in.
The changes proposed in B.C. are not just technical amendments, they reflect a broader shift toward conditional housing, where rights can be scaled back in the name of flexibility or safety.
If exceptions to tenant protections become normalized for one group, it becomes easier to extend those exceptions more widely. Over time, that can reshape the entire rental system in Canada – similarly to how Ontario already attempted to introduce Nova Scotia’s fixed-term lease system to get around legal eviction processes. But just like Ontario, we know strong pushback from tenants and organizations that support them can force the government to change direction.
In the middle of a housing crisis, stability should be the goal. That depends on rights that are clear, consistent, and enforceable for everyone.
For non-profits, if you have questions about your rights and responsibilities as a long-term housing provider you can call or email Dal Legal Aid at 902-423-8105 or legalaid@dal.ca.
Read More:
Non-profit says B.C.’s new supportive housing legislation still has ‘very far’ to go – CityNews
B.C.’s Bill 11 improves housing safety, but raises risks for tenants – Policy Options
Ontario government backs down on consultations to end rent control, indefinite leases - CBC