The Slummies: Inside London ACORN’s “slumlord” awards

On July 14, London’s ACORN tenant organizing group held its first “Slumlord of the Year” awards ceremony, a mock award ceremony to call attention to what their survey-based data suggests are some of the city’s worst landlords. Their aim is to encourage the city to hold these landlords accountable. 

Over the past several months, London ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), a tenant advocacy group, conducted a survey of tenants across the city, gathering around 80 responses. Complete with tenant testimonials and bronze, silver, and gold “slumlord” trophies to give to landlords across the city, the awards ceremony called out those with the worst scores. 

Around 30 people attended the award ceremony in Victoria Park near the bandshell. Flyers were distributed across the city in the preceding weeks, promoting the event to the public.

Over 30 per cent of tenants who responded to the ACORN survey report seeing roaches or bed bugs in their building daily, and 10 per cent see bed bugs or roaches every week. 84 per cent report their repairs taking several months or being outright ignored. 60 per cent report frequent or constant pest issues in their building; and 68 per cent reported building management harassing, bullying, intimidating, or otherwise harming tenants’ well-being.

80 per cent of tenants reported it takes several months to a year for their landlord to complete repairs, maintenance, or treat pest issues, or that these issues are never resolved.

“These statistics are unacceptable,” said Farrah Sherrard, secretary at the London Central Chapter of ACORN.

Dishonorable Mentions

The awards ceremony began with a ‘dishonorable mentions’ award section, which included two awards for landlords that tenants frequently brought up in the survey that didn’t make the top three.

The recipient of the Homewrecker of the Year Award was Michael Klein. Klein, who owns the 1270 and 1280 Webster Street apartments through his company Webster Apartments Incorporated has been frequently targeted by ACORN in their campaign against renovictions. An ACORN report from 2024 linked Klein to 21 buildings experiencing renovictions across the province, holding him personally responsible for hundreds of evictions.

Upon the announcement that Klein had won the award, several audience members booed. Sharon Hodgson, a current tenant in the now infamous Webster Street apartments, spoke about her experiences in the building. “Since that day the building was sold to the new owners [Klein], everything changed and not for the better,” said Hodgson. “Maintenance stopped, cleaning stopped. Garbage piled up. Repairs were ignored.”

Dozens of Webster Street tenants were evicted in 2024 by Klein’s company, Webster Apts. Inc.. These forced evictions were met with protests and political challenges, eventually leading to the city adopting a renoviction bylaw to protect tenants in similar situations.

For 60 days last year, Hodgson and other residents in the building had no running water. When it did return, the water was brown, murky and undrinkable. The landlord would frequently turn the water off for more than 8 hours at a time, sometimes without adequate notice. “None of this is by accident,” said Hodgson. “Everything that they did was calculated to encourage the people that were trying to fight the N-13 renoviction notices into leaving. So they tried to make life as difficult as possible.”

The N-13 form serves as a notice to tenants that they must vacate a rental unit indefinitely for reasons such as demolition, conversion, or major repairs that require the unit to be vacant. Tenant rights advocates argue that these notices are frequently used to raise rents for units under the guise of a renovation.

In November 2023, tenants in the apartments went days without heating, with no notice from their landlord. Parking in the building used to be free, but in May of the same year, the rental company increased underground parking costs to $300 per month. 

“I was without power for eight days, and when I tried to contact the supervisor, they would just say, ‘we don’t deal with that,’ and they would just hang up with me,” said Hodgson. “The relationship between management and tenants has completely broken down. It’s been like that for over two years now. There’s no communication. Every time we talk about something, we get threatened, or we receive another letter at our door that something else is going to happen.”

The recipient of the ACORN Made Me Do It Award was Old Oak Properties. The company owns 10 buildings across the city and has previously been a focus of subject of many tenant protests led by ACORN. Tenants have complained of frequent pest infestations and repair requests being ignored.

Old Oak addressed some of the major repair issues in their properties on Adelaide Street following repeated action by ACORN, but the company still refuses to meet with the tenant union whilst continuing to charge tenants maximum rent increases each year.

Bronze, Silver, and Gold Trophies

From there, awards were given to London ACORN’s top three worst landlords.

In third place, with a bronze trophy, was Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (CAPREIT). 

Tenants in CAPREIT-owned buildings, of which there are 19 in London, reported experiencing frequent water damage issues, mold in their units, and frequent pest issues.

CAPREIT was found to consistently bypass rent controls in its buildings by applying for above-guideline rent increases (AGI). Ontario law allows landlords to apply for AGI exceeding the annual guideline set by the province, with the requirement of approval from the Landlord and Tenant Board. The maximum increase a landlord can apply for in any one AGI application is 9 per cent. A 2020 ACORN report found CAPREIT was in the process of applying for AGI in nearly 40 per cent of their Ontario apartment units.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) allow individuals to invest in large-scale, income-generating real estate without having to buy or manage properties directly. Jordan Smith of ACORN calls REITs “one of the most destructive mechanisms” in housing today. “It’s really worth pointing out that our own federal government is complicit in creating this product and pushing it as a way to fix our economy,” said Smith.

In second place, with a silver trophy, was London Middlesex Community Housing (LMCH), London’s community housing organization. The City of London is the organization’s sole shareholder. Tenant responses to the survey claimed the LMCH had horrific pest infestations across all their properties, with units themselves in dire states of disrepair.

“Maintenance response times are outrageous. I’ve been waiting more than six months to have my plumbing fixed,” said Sharon Villeneuve, an LMHC tenant at 85 Walnut Street. “I shouldn’t have to live with this stress, wondering when disaster will strike. They’ve known about this for months and still refuse to act. It’s a ticking time bomb, and they’re letting the clock run out.”

According to LMHC’s own figures, around one-third of their buildings had bedbugs, cockroaches, and other pests as of late last year.

“London Housing came to our building recently after we demanded action, and in just two days, they opened up 70 new maintenance requests, and they haven’t even spoken to everyone yet,” Villeneuve said. “We deserve better, and we’re done waiting. It’s time for London housing to stop making excuses and start making change.”

In first place, with a gold trophy dubbed the “2025 Golden Slummy,” was Medallion Corporation, which owns 7 apartment buildings in the city.

Earlier in the year, Medallion Corporation’s 400 Lyle Street building began closing its accessible entrance at night with chains in what tenants called a cheap attempt to improve security, which has caused numerous accessibility issues. Medallion’s tenants also reported their landlord would outright ignore maintenance requests until tenants were forced to take legal action, and even then would refuse to comply with orders from the landlord and tenant board. 

In May 2024, nearly 300 tenants in 700 King Street East, a building owned by Medallion Corporation, were told to share just three showers until the building’s hot water was fixed.

In 2021, the balcony guardrails at the corporation’s 400 Lyle Street building were found to fail Ontario building safety codes after a child fatally fell from a balcony in the building.

As with other properties named at the ceremony, Medallion’s properties are reported to have frequent issues of water leakages, mold, and pipe clogs, which tenants say have caused them to experience serious health issues. However, tenants also reported that their repair requests would repeatedly be marked as complete without anyone coming to inspect the issues.

“We have now had water coming through our light fixtures in our kitchen,” said Ken DeJong, a tenant at 400 Lyle Street. “Being with Medallion means that we get to have mold growing on our ceiling in our kitchen right now, and we also have uncontrollable pest issues that they keep on treating for, but [they] only treat the specific parts of the unit, not the whole unit.”

Slumlord Enabler of the Year

After the gold trophy was handed out, London ACORN still had one more award to give.

“Who is responsible for tenants not being protected from unsafe apartments? Who is responsible for allowing slumlords to run rampant across London?” Sherrard asked the audience. 

“The city!” responded the audience.

And with that, the City of London received ACORN’s Slumlord Enabler of the Year award.

“There is a clear way to address these problems [that] the city has not been ready to accept until now. This solution would address all of these problems, protect tenant health and safety, and would mean we would never need to hold another event like this ever again,” said Smith. 

To help protect tenants, ACORN has proposed a landlord licensing program that would see the city taking proactive inspections of units to ensure that tenants don’t face retaliation for making a complaint. The program would work similarly to Toronto’s RentSafe program.

“We are able to collect this information in only a couple of months to give us a good picture of what is happening to tenants in London,” added Sherrard. “What’s crazy, though, the city doesn’t have these records. They aren’t even aware of how bad it is on the ground. There’s no accountability for these slumlords, and that needs to change.” 

“The city has failed to hold these landlords accountable. By licensing them, we’re taking things into our own hands. We’re here to name and shame those slumlords … and to call out the city for failing to take action against them,” said Smith.

None of the award-winning landlords responded to Antler River Media’s request for comment.