Opinion | When a 91-year-old renter in Toronto is evicted with nowhere else to go, our governments have failed completely

He had no family or friends to turn to, and the city’s shelter system had no space for him.“I don’t sleep,” he told Habibinia. “I’m stressed. I’m depressed. Where am I to go?”No 91-year-old should have to ask that question. And it’s not as if Ventullo had been living in luxury: a friend described the ground-level unit in Little Italy that he’d rented for 20 years as “really run down,” with no refrigerator and “plaster falling from the ceiling.”Ventullo also says he endured an infestation of bedbugs prior to receiving his eviction notice, issued in July 2023 by his landlord’s son, George Demelo, who according to court documents said he intended to move from Edmonton to Toronto and into the unit to support his ailing father. (Demelo did not respond to the Star’s repeated requests for comment.)

A legal battle ensued, and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice upheld the eviction. Yet some observers believe Ventullo is the victim of a “renoviction.” Indeed, tenants across Ontario have accused landlords of issuing bogus eviction notices under the pretext of moving in themselves or making essential renovations.City council passed a long-overdue bylaw last year.
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Ontario has long been faced with a so-called grey tsunami that would see its senior population spike and the number of citizens 85 and older reach unprecedented highs. A report from Queen’s University titled “Ageing Well,” published in 2020, found that too many seniors in Canada had been placed in inadequate settings. Healthy aging, the report indicates, would require major policy changes that emphasize housing and the social needs of elderly Canadians.“The great majority of seniors want to age well and in place,” the report states, “in homes and communities they can call their own.” It warned of the “coming surge” of seniors, especially in older cohorts.

But if the case of Isidoro Ventullo is any indication, the warning was not heeded. The challenge has not been met.Ventullo’s options are ones that no one would want for their own parents or grandparents. They are ones that no senior in a city, in a province, in a country as wealthy as ours should be faced with.Yet if our governments, especially Queen’s Park, do not act on housing, on elder care, on basic decency then they are the only options many of us will have when it becomes  our turn to grow old in Toronto.