Crim-eviction: Eviction and Social Control at a Residential Tenancies Tribunal

Abstract

  This article conducts a critical reading of decisions of the Office of Residential Tenancies, Saskatchewan’s residential tenancies tribunal, that deal specifically with urgent landlord applications for immediate eviction based on tenant behaviours that are alleged to be criminal, illegal, frightening, or dangerous.  Coining the term “crim-eviction” to help describe this category of decisions, the article identifies that residential tenancies tribunals like the Office of Residential Tenancies are actively involved in the governance of perceived crime and disorder and the discipline and management of marginalized tenants through eviction processes.  Whether or not criminal or illegal activity is alleged, the crim-eviction cases mobilize tropes and fears about crime, disorder, risk, and danger to rationalize the expulsion of tenants from their homes.  Hearing officers draw on these familiar discourses and tropes, applying them in an administrative law context where formal rules of evidence do not apply, where appellate scrutiny is rare, where tenants almost never have legal assistance, and where tenants are already highly marginalized.  

Keywords: Eviction, Housing, Access to justice