In this episode of New Housing Alternatives, hosts Cherise Burda and Ren Thomas speak with Dr. Nemoy Lewis about how race, transit investment, and financialized landlords intersect to drive evictions in Toronto’s rental housing market, and how emerging uses of AI risk making things worse.
Drawing on years of research into evictions, multifamily acquisitions, and transit-oriented development, Dr. Lewis shows that Toronto’s eviction crisis is not random. Instead, eviction filings are highly concentrated in Black renter–majority neighborhoods, particularly in the northwest quadrant of the city and along new transit corridors.
Key Takeaways
- Evictions in Toronto are not random: they form a predictable, racialized geography of harm, with Black renter–majority neighborhoods facing eviction rates up to five to seven times the city average.
- Even when controlling for income, Black renters, including middle‑income households, experience disproportionately high eviction filings, showing eviction is a structural, not individual, problem.
- The northwest quadrant of Toronto and communities like North Albion (Rexdale), Chalkfarm, Jane and Finch, and Little Jamaica are among the hardest hit, especially around new transit investments.
- Financialized and corporate landlords drive most evictions: about 80–85% of filings occur in the primary rental market, and eviction is often used as a business strategy to “reposition” properties and attract higher‑income tenants.
- Large-scale transit projects trigger waves of multifamily acquisitions in historically disinvested, racialized neighborhoods, followed by spikes in eviction filings.
- AI tools are increasingly used in rent setting and tenant screening, potentially enabling collusion, removing human discretion, and embedding racial bias into housing decisions.
- Strengthening competition law, recognizing housing as a social good, and adopting vacancy control (tying rent control to the unit, not the tenancy) are key policy directions to disincentivize eviction-driven profit strategies and better protect renters.
Chapters:
00:00 – Intro & Episode Overview
00:37 – Introducing Dr. Nimoy Lewis
02:06 – Research Goals & Eviction Patterns
05:18 – Beyond Downtown: Northwest Toronto Focus
08:44 – Who Is Being Evicted and Why
14:12 – Transit Investment & Property Repositioning
19:40 – AI, Rent Setting, and Tenant Screening
23:26 – Policy Responses & Vacancy Control
26:26 – Where to Learn More About the Research
27:53 – Outro & Credits
What is New Housing Alternatives?
What if the solutions to Canada’s housing crisis are already out there, just hidden in plain sight? New Housing Alternatives Podcast digs deeper to uncover what really works in solving the affordability issue.
Despite dominant narratives claiming our housing crisis can be solved by simply building more market-rate supply, nearly half of Canadian households can’t afford average rents today. The crisis is deeper than a numbers game; it’s about who we’re building for, who gets left out, and what kind of communities we want to live in.
Join hosts Ren Thomas and Cherise Burda as they explore real solutions to this once-in-a-generation housing crisis and cut through the noise on Canada’s housing affordability crisis to spotlight real solutions that already exist, and the people making them happen.
New Housing Alternatives is made possible with the support of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Grant, a partnership that is co-directed by Alan Walks and Susannah Bunce and based at the University of Toronto.
In this series, we talk to the people doing the work: nonprofit and co-operative developers, community organizers, and researchers reimagining housing not as a commodity, but as a human right. These are the underdogs creating affordable homes against the odds, proving it’s possible to build housing for people, not profit.
You’ll hear from:
-Ground-breaking developers creating alternative models of co-ownership and co-ops
-Policy experts who challenge the supply-only narrative
-Economists and data experts unpack how affordability vanishes, and how to bring it back
-Community leaders who are preserving existing homes and building new ones in ways that centre dignity and access
Whether you're a policymaker, housing advocate, or simply someone trying to make rent, this podcast brings you stories and insights that show a different future is not only possible, it’s already being built.