FINANCIALIZED VIOLENCE IN TORONTO ’S RENTAL MARKET : Eviction Rates in Majority Black Renter Communities

Abstract

While the geographical distribution of eviction filings has been explored in Toronto, the intersection of rental housing financialization, race and eviction remains underexplored. Financial actors and their intermediaries, who fuel the eviction crisis in economically disenfranchised Black renter communities, exert significant influence over housing stability, which demands deeper scrutiny. Evictions for non‐payment of rent consistently make up most filings in Toronto, with racialized communities disproportionately affected, worsened by the unequal toll of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Between 2016 and 2021, eviction filings were highest in Black‐majority neighbourhoods, where corporate landlords dominate the rental market. In some areas, eviction rates have reached 36%—36 filings per 100 rental units—exposing the scale of displacement driven by these entities. In this article we investigate the economic violence embedded in the financialization of rental housing in Toronto’s Black‐majority neighbourhoods to illustrate how profit‐driven motives systematically undermine Black lives and spaces. Yet, amid this violence, tenant resistance has emerged as a powerful counter‐narrative, underscoring the transformative potential of grassroots organizing in advancing housing as a human right. Through quantitative and spatial analyses, this study exposes the financial actors fuelling Toronto’s eviction crisis, producing racialized geographies of eviction and housing instability to offer insights into the dynamics perpetuating housing insecurity.