Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
To the landlord class:
Why do we break windows? Why did we break your windows (and paint your offices)? Just like every July 1st, many renting households will find themselves on the street. Others will end up in inadequate, substandard, and/or unaffordable housing. In the coming days, we’ll be hearing about the housing crisis. Rising prices. A shortage of available housing. And just like every year, most people will move on to the next story. We’ve heard it all before. But one thing that’s never discussed—or only mentioned in passing—is who’s responsible for the crisis. The housing crisis didn’t just happen out of thin air. People who find themselves on the streets are not victims of the invisible market. Gentrification and the financialization of housing are not natural phenomena. There are people behind this crisis, people behind this market, people behind these phenomena. And these people have names and addresses.
Among those responsible are companies like Iacobo Capital and Denstays. Why these two? Because they have the misfortune (and our good fortune) of being neighbors! The first is a rental and investment company that acquires and manages “undervalued” apartment complexes and units for its investors. Yet this company, which boasts of being a real estate leader, is nothing less than a serial renovictor and a horrible slumlord that plays with the health of its tenants. For its part, Denstays is a short-term rental company with several luxury units in the Plateau, Little Italy, and Mile End. Its executives also rent out properties on Airbnb. The impact of short-term rentals on housing and our communities is well known. Denstays is actively contributing to this trend.
Anyway, on the night of June 30 to July 1, we decided to take matters into our own hands. Why did we smash your windows (and paint your offices)? Because we’re sick of seeing so much energy and resources wasted on lobbying elected officials for unfortunately often paltry gains and on organizing peaceful protests for the right to housing. Instead, we decided to smash your windows. To physically attack your workspaces (just so you know, we’re not heartless—we don’t attack your living spaces, unlike you). To make you pay the price of your responsibility. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Or something like that.
Now we hope that other nighttime troublemakers will feel inspired to take matters into their own hands ;p
