MONTREAL – After facing eviction from his landord, Pierino Di Tonno, who has called his Saint-Laurent Boulevard apartment home for more than 40 years, will be calling it that for at least one more.
The Quebec rental board declared his eviction notice illegal on grounds that it didn’t respect administrative deadlines and wasn’t signed by the person authorized to do so.
“I feel very good, but only for a year,” said 82-year-old Di Tonno, who has spent much of the past year hospitalized for stomach cancer.
“Maybe next year I have a difficult, same story.”
Last December, Di Tonno and two other elderly tenants received eviction notices from their landlord, who owns half a dozen buildings on Saint-Laurent Boulevard, including renowned grocery store Milano.
READ MORE: Elderly Montrealer takes eviction fight to rental board
The notice stated subdivision as the reason for eviction, but Martin Blanchard of the Petite Patrie Housing Committee said evidence in the case indicated ulterior motives.
“The whole thing shows that it’s not a very serious project and that the intention is just to get rid of tenants who pay a low rent,” said Blanchard.
Di Tonno pays $510 per month for his two-bedroom apartment in Little Italy.
It’s affordable and large enough to accommodate his uncountable photographs, which he fears he wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere if he were to be evicted.
“I have millions of negatives,” said Di Tonno, who dedicated his career to photography.
“And that’s my story, my life.”
The community has rallied behind Di Tonno in his effort to get the owner to back down.
“I think that it’s really sad for a man that’s been living here for over 40 years,” said Claire Lafontaine, who lives in the area.
“I am personally a photographer, so I sort of support him even spiritually in his ‘demarche artistique’ and I think we should support our elders.”
On Wednesday, Di Tonno and his supporters celebrated his victory, but they recognize that it could be nothing more than a delay in an inevitable eviction.
READ MORE: Community rallies behind 82-year-old faced with eviction
Still, Di Tonno said he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.
“Because tomorrow, it’s another day.”
Meanwhile, Blanchard hopes a proposed law will be adopted to force landlords to come up with a comparable alternative for low-income seniors who face being removed from their homes.
“We’ve been negotiating for two years this very, very modest project of law that I think everyone accepts,” he said.
An item-by-item study of the proposed legislation will have to be underway at the National Assembly by May 12 if it’s going to come into effect in time to protect Di Tonno, should an eviction be attempted again in 2017.
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