The Audit Nobody Wants to Run

I want to be straightforward about something before I get into this: I don't enjoy this part of the job. Not because I have any sympathy for what happened here, but because the whole situation is a reminder of how badly this system can be abused, and how long it can go on before anyone catches it.

We're in the middle of an eviction process right now. The tenant, who I'll call Margaret, has been living in a rent-geared-to-income unit in this building for several years. Her rent was calculated based on her reported income. She went through the standard review process. On paper, she looked eligible.

She wasn't.

How These Things Surface

RGI eligibility isn't a one-time thing. It's reviewed periodically. Tenants are required to report their household income, assets, and composition on a regular basis, and that information gets checked against what's on record. The process exists precisely because people's circumstances change, and the subsidy is supposed to reflect what someone actually needs, not what they reported years ago.

In Margaret's case, the review flagged inconsistencies. When the records were cross-checked through the verification process, it came out that she owns multiple properties. Not vacant land. Not an inherited property sitting empty somewhere. Occupied properties, generating rental income, with tenants living in them.

That's not a grey area. That is a direct violation of RGI eligibility rules. You cannot own occupied residential properties and receive rent-geared-to-income housing assistance. The rules are explicit. She knew them, or she should have known them, because every tenant signs off on understanding them as a condition of the subsidy.

What the Verification Process Actually Looks Like

I'm not involved in the income verification side of this directly. That's handled at a higher level, through the organization's housing eligibility team. But what I understand from having seen a few of these cases over the years is that it typically involves cross-referencing a tenant's declarations against things like property assessment records, income tax filings, and other public or administrative data sources. It's not foolproof, and it doesn't happen in real time, which is part of why someone can slip through for a long time before it catches up with them.

The periodic review process is the checkpoint. And when that checkpoint works the way it's supposed to, this is what happens: the discrepancy surfaces, it gets investigated, and if the investigation confirms what the records suggest, the file moves toward the housing tribunal.

That's where Margaret's case is now. It's a formal process with its own timeline, and I'm not going to get into the procedural details here. But the outcome, assuming nothing changes, is that she'll be losing this unit.

The Part That Actually Bothers Me

There is a waitlist for RGI housing in this city. It is not a short one. People wait years. Some of them are living in genuinely precarious situations right now: couch surfing, sharing one-bedroom apartments with extended family, paying rent that takes up more than half of a modest income, aging out of situations that aren't sustainable. These are people who filled out the paperwork, told the truth, and got put in a queue.

Margaret was not in that queue. Margaret was collecting rent from tenants in her own properties while paying subsidized rent here. The math on that is uncomfortable to think about for too long.

I've seen a few eligibility cases over the years, but this one is about as clear-cut as it gets. There's no ambiguity about what the rules say. There's no unusual hardship being overlooked by a rigid policy. She owns income-producing properties. She was receiving a housing subsidy meant for people who own nothing and have nowhere else to go.

That's what makes this different from other compliance situations. Most tenant issues involve some degree of context, some nuance. Someone struggling with a hoarding situation, someone dealing with mental health challenges that affect how they interact with neighbours, a household that grew beyond the unit's capacity because of a family emergency. Those cases are complicated. You hold two things in mind at once.

This case doesn't ask me to do that.

Where Things Stand

The file is with the team handling the tribunal process. My role right now is mostly administrative on the building side: making sure the work order documentation is in order, being available if anything comes up operationally, and preparing for what comes after.

What comes after is someone else getting this unit. Someone who's been waiting. Someone for whom this is not a backup plan.

That's the part I keep coming back to. Not Margaret's situation, but whoever is next on that list. They don't know yet that something shifted. But eventually this unit gets freed up and offered to someone who genuinely needs it, and that's the only part of this whole thing that feels right.