Writing a Book About the LTB
It's been an off-and-on pursuit for close to six months. I wanted to share a free sample of what this looks like.
The Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) is a topic of interest these days. If you weren’t aware, this is a quasi-judicial government body that handles all landlord and tenant disputes in Ontario.
You may be aware that I published a book in 2023 about my horrible tenant experience called From Rent to Ruin. The experience of writing, editing, re-writing and then editing more was gruelling and demanding, but fulfilling. The book felt like an accomplishment given all that was going on and how deeply involved I was with an organization called SOLO at the time.
When this was published, there was a ton of talk about what would come next. Would I write another book in essay form chronicling other landlord’s stories? Would I write a sequel? Some were talking about a SOLO publishing house and that this might spur on other writers of books. Of course, writing is often like injuring ourselves on purpose, so none of that happened. Some would come out of the woodwork having written their own books too, I saw some great work from a ton of folks.
As I ruminated on what I might write next, I always came back to the mission of supporting a fairer rental market and small landlords. These thoughts always brought me back to the LTB. Back then, the LTB was so far backlogged, that the quickest path to a hearing was some eight months, making a fast eviction a year-long process. My own eviction would come some 16 months after I started the process. The LTB has since improved, but they’re still miles behind in backlog and still have major issues with institutional thinking.
So, I decided to write about the LTB. Chapter by chapter I built an outline and began to write it out. This is so early in the process that I don’t even have a name or cover for the book. I’ve written in raw draft form roughly 9,000 words of my likely target of 60,000 words (that’s close to a 200-page book). Things have progressed, which is great, but there’s still a long road ahead.
I’d written out part of a chapter that talked about how we fix the tribunal and its many flaws. The next part of that chapter was to talk about what just about everyone has been calling for: a return to in-person hearings. I present that four page section to you here. It would be great if you’d take a look and share your thoughts with me.
Click below to read it now:
https://cwl.cc/static/tribunal-book-sample.pdf
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