'Our family just got evicted from our house'

A grassroots meeting in Charlottetown Thursday night, calling itself the fight for affordable housing, included repeated calls for more regulation ofhousing in P.E.I. and more protections for tenants.

Megan Dorrell saidshelived in the same rental home for sevenyears but recently lost her home when a real estate agent offered to buy the property from her landlord.

"Our family just got evicted from our house," said Dorrell.

She calls the experience scary, saying they miss their neighbourhood but couldn't afford to stay.

"We've always lived in this community and now we can't live in Charlottetown anymore."

'I didn't want to tell my son'

It was tough to keep life normal,Dorrellsaid, whiledealing with the stress of losing thehome she shares with herpartner and her son.

"I didn't want to tell my son that we were moving until we had a place to live," saidDorrell.

But when she saw how tight the market was she knew she would have to be honest.

"As it stands right now you cannot live in Charlottetown and be low income anymore," she said.

'Tenants have really had no voice'

Presenters at the grassroots meeting talked about evictions becoming all too common noting that properties were changing hands and becoming over priced or converted into short-term tourism rentals like Airbnb.

"Developers and landlords are able to ease tenants out of their apartments,"said Rosalind Waters, a community advocate.

Waters helps find housing for people with intellectual disabilities and worked as a tenant advocate in other parts of Canada. She saidP.E.I. people living on low and modest incomes are being driven out of properties.

"Some people are doing very well in the development industry while tenants are experiencing terrible disruption, and loss of homes," said Waters.

"Tenants have really had no voice."

Waterssaidthere is motivation now to form some kind of tenants organization to put pressure on government.

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