About my housing situation between OCH, Housing and Social Workers of Ottawa Mission since 2023. Posted May 01 of 2025 in Ottawa Ontario Canada. Updated on May 22 of 2025 in Ottawa Ontario Canada K1G3P2

When I was offered the apartment in OCH building in July 2023 by the housing workers of Ottawa Mission, I was reluctant to accept the offer because I was on OW social assistance and rent portion was not sufficient to cover the housing cost. I was forced to accept the offer by the question "as if, I was refusing (or perhaps the word  "declining" was used) the offer" and rental Subsidy was also offered to make it affordable. So, I accepted the apartment at the subsidized monthly payment offered to me. At the time of renewal of the lease in 2024 my monthly payments went up more than five times (due to reduced Subsidy) and the reason was the increas in money due to transition from OW social assisistance to OAS. But increas in money was not as much as was the increase in my monthly payments. So why reduce Subsidy. This increase in rent required me to setup a new payment schedule with the bank, causes other hardships as well.  Although there was never missing rent, OCH staff keeps on reminding me of missing rent with vague and baseless bogus letters without specifics. This started in December 2024. 

This raises many concerns for me:

1) if this was their normal behavior towards rent paying tenants why would  housing workers of the Ottawa mission house me in a OCH building as if the tenant was not acceptable. Or perhaps this was done to me, to prevent me from other offers and to isolate me from other housing opportunities which were available to me at that time in 2023 due to recent housing incident of June 2022 in Hamilton Ontario Canada,  incident was repeated in Brampton Ontario around the Family Day 2023 weekend. I have an image of the handwritten note which was used in Brampton to harass and prevent me from entering my rental unit in a house.

2) instead of bothering the housed tenants directly, OCH staff write to or must contact the previous Housing workers to discuss the issues and remedies. 

3) OCH should keep more experienced and professionally trained staff in the front office to deal with such issues and understand the tenants situation instead of pre set ideas or serving someone else's interests, there should be some continuity of the staff such as person who facilitated the lease signing paperwork should be available to resolve such matters. 

4) In my early years in Canada I rented with private builders and housing companies and such problems did not exist at that time, like false and bogus rent arrears.

5) At the time of accepting the offer I asked for the history of the building to determine if there were other people in the building with similar name as me. Instead of history of the place I was assured that I will not be bothered by any previous issues if there were other people by the same or similar name in the building, only lease period will be my responsibility.

Met with the same housing worker of Ottawa mission on May 14 of 2025 around 15h00 after visiting the social worker building centretown health centre in down town (Cooper street). Was not available that day. Same day a man from this building (who moved out in 2023 and lives at Walkley across from the food Basics) was seen outside the Cooper St. Health centre heading towards the entrance of the centre, he said something to me in a unknown language, I replied "English" or "Urdu".

Finally got connected to the same social worker by email on May 22 of 2025, and submitted few pages of the lease documents records (which was signed in 2023, to remind her and to connect her to the past event). A meeting in person was scheduled to look at the issue with OCH housing company. Initially documents were collected from me and submitted to OCH by the housing worker of Ottawa mission in June/July 2023 (OW social assistance was also part of the process). After that same process was repeated in June/July 2024 to renew the lease with reduced Subsidy (which caused monthly payments to go up).

This year in 2025, OCH should use their internal channels to get the information from CRA and/or Service Canada to get my financial records, if they find any discrepancy in facts than they should ask me for the supporting documents. Nothing has changed during the past two years, only my age has changed (date of birth is the same), which makes me older than before.

Documented by:

Engr. {(male) KhalidMahmood}

Ontario DL#: M01684340561220

Ph:(613)413-9812

307-1909 Russell Rd, OTTAWA ONTARIO CANADA K1G3P2