Six years ago, I quit a job I loved to run for city council in London. I ran on a platform to make our city a more equal, fairer place — especially for renters. In London, renters were paying almost twice the property tax rate of homeowners. Because this unfair tax burden was included in the rent they paid, they weren’t even aware of it. I wanted to fix that.
During that first campaign, I remember canvassing a three-storey apartment complex. It was a fairly low turnout area, but our campaign had made it a priority to canvass the whole riding and not just the historically high turnout areas. The buildings were probably built 60 years ago. After buzzing tenants until someone let us in, I knocked on one of the doors and an elderly couple answered. “We have never seen a politician in here, and we’ve lived here for 20 years!” Think about that. Twenty years and they had never talked to a candidate face-to-face.
In the six years I’ve served as a member of city council, I’ve witnessed just how strongly our system of local government favours homeowners over renters. Property tax notices are sent to homeowners but not tenants (despite property tax comprising 15% or more of most monthly rents). It’s harder to canvass renters, so many never actually get to meet political candidates. Renters have lower voter turnout, lower participation in local decision-making processes like public meetings, and generally have less say. This has been true since the beginning of local government in Canada (when most renters were not allowed to vote, or run for office) — and some of these barriers to political participation persist today.
This is a problem, not just because it’s unfair, but because of who rents. Compared to homeowners, renters in Canada are younger, poorer, darker-skinned, more likely to be in core housing need and more likely to live in urban areas.
Now, we’ve made some gains over the years. Renters are allowed to vote now (although not if they are permanent residents). In London, we’ve started mailing land use planning notices to tenants and not just owners. We’ve also lowered the unfair tax burden on apartments by more than 27%, contributing to the issuance of more than 12,700 rent reduction notices to tenants.
So far, there has not been an in-depth exploration of whether the institutions of local government are biased against renters, how and why they are biased, and how these biases may affect voter behaviour in urban politics.
That changes now.
Renter Suppression Hypothesis
There is a big voter turnout gap between homeowners and renters, even after controlling for other factors like age, income, education and sex. The conventional explanation for this gap is that “homevoters” who are concerned about property values are motivated to protect against uninsurable risks to the value of their principal asset -- their homes (Fischel, 2001 and 2005; McGregor and Spicer, 2016).
I propose that Fischel's homevoter hypothesis is only part of the story. This homeowner gap is actually two effects, one positive on homeowners and one negative on renters. And it’s the rules -- how we organize local politics, how we run elections, draw electoral boundaries, allow or don’t allow political parties, how electoral lists are developed and maintained, and so on, that suppresses the participation of renters.
I call this the renter suppression hypothesis. Through my doctoral studies, building on the excellent work of Jessica Trounstine (2008) on institutional bias in the United States, I’ll be tracing the historical development of key institutions of local government in Canada, the extent to which those institutions are biased against renters (you can help here!), and measuring the effect of this bias on contemporary political participation.
Join Me
Want updates on this project as it progresses? Sign up here. I’ll also be doing my first public lecture (by Zoom) on the project on December 11, 2020 at 1pm. You’re welcome to join to learn more about the project!
Photo credit: dcjohn on Flickr, licenced under a Creative Commons licence.
