Sandy’s Weblog

Fraudster Bernard Madoff has been assaulted by another inmate while in jail, according to reports.

The former financier is serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner jail in North Carolina for running a fraud scheme that cost investors billions of dollars.

The attack reportedly happened in December and Madoff was transferred to the prison’s low-security medical centre for treatment.

The disgraced financier was treated for a broken nose, fractured ribs and cuts to his head and face, according to a fellow inmate, currently serving time on drug charges.

Another inmate, who was recently released from Butner after serving time on drug charges, confirmed the assault, as did a third person described as being familiar with the situation.

The former inmate said the dispute centred on money the assailant thought he was owed by Madoff.

One report said Madoff’s assailant was a “beefy” man serving time for a drug conviction.

At the time of the alleged assault, the Bureau of Prisons said the rumours were false and Madoff had suffered from dizziness and hypertension.

It said it had investigated the incident and interviewed Madoff himself.

“In December he told staff he was not assaulted, and an investigation was completed following his statements, which corroborated his statements,” said spokeswoman Traci Billingsley later.

“Not one inmate has told staff he was assaulted.”

Madoff, 71, has since returned to the medium-security facility where he was originally housed.

About the Board

The Landlord and Tenant Board (the Board) resolves disputes between tenants and landlords. It is similar to a court.

Either a landlord or a tenant can apply to the Board. Their disputes can be worked out through mediation or adjudication.

In mediation, a Board Mediator helps a landlord and tenant reach an agreement they are both satisfied with.

In adjudication, a hearing is usually held. A Board Member makes a decision based on the evidence the landlord and tenant present, and then issues an order. An order is the final, written version of the Board Member’s decision.

The Board also provides landlords and tenants with information about the rights and responsibilities they have under the Act.

To contact the Board, see the section For More Information at the end of this brochure.
About tenancy agreements

The landlord and tenant can sign a written agreement when a new tenancy is entered into, or they can have an oral agreement. A tenancy agreement is often called a lease. The landlord must give the tenant a copy of any written lease.

The lease should not contain any terms that are inconsistent with the Act. If the lease does contain a term that is inconsistent with the Act, that term will not be enforced by the Board.

The landlord must also give the tenant the landlord’s legal name and address so that the tenant can give the landlord any necessary notices or documents.

Whether there is a written or oral lease, landlords must provide new tenants with information about the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants and about the role of the Landlord and Tenant Board. The landlord must give this information to the tenant on or before the start of the tenancy, in a form approved by the Board. The Board has a two-page brochure that landlords should use for this purpose.
About Rent
Rent for a new tenant

When a new tenancy is entered into, the landlord and tenant decide how much the rent will be for a rental unit and which services will be included in the rent (for example, parking, cable, heat, electricity).

In most cases, the rent cannot be increased until at least 12 months after the tenant moved in.
Rent deposits

A landlord can collect a rent deposit from a new tenant on or before the start of a new tenancy. Where the tenant pays rent by the month, the deposit cannot be more than one month’s rent; where the tenant pays rent by the week, the deposit cannot be more than one week’s rent.

The rent deposit can only be used as the rent payment for the last month or week before the tenant moves out. It cannot be used for anything else, such as repairing damage to the rental unit.

If the landlord gives the tenant a notice to increase the rent, the landlord can also ask the tenant to increase the rent deposit by the same amount.

A landlord must pay the tenant interest on the rent deposit every year. Under the Act, the interest rate is the same as the rent increase guideline (see the section Rent Increase Guideline).

Exception: For the first interest payment that the landlord has to give the tenant after January 31, 2007 (this is the date the Residential Tenancies Act became the law), a 6% interest rate applies for the months up to January 31, 2007.

At first, Kristen Stewart thought it was just bad timing when several apartments she was hoping to rent were no longer available when she showed up to view them.

But when a landlord looked her in the eye and coldly said he didn’t rent to teens with babies, the truth hit like a slap in the face. As a young, black, single mom on welfare, nobody wanted to rent to her.

And she is not alone.

A groundbreaking study, to be released today, estimates that about one in four black, single parents and households on social assistance face moderate to severe discrimination in Toronto’s tight rental market. The same is true for South Asians.

For those with a mental illness, more than one-third face discrimination when they inquire about available apartments, the study found.

“Even when rental housing is available, thousands of marginalized individuals and families cannot make it through the door,” says the report by the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation.

“Any strategies to address homelessness and housing insecurity must address this reality.”

The study, one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in Canada, was funded through a $90,000 grant from the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, established by former Toronto Star publisher Joseph E. Atkinson.

Ontario’s Human Rights Code protects renters from discrimination on a variety of grounds, including family status, age, disability, colour, ethnic background and reliance on social assistance.

To test landlord compliance, the centre created five “renter profiles” – a single mother with one child; a black single mother with one child; a single South Asian man, a single man with a mental illness and a married woman on provincial disability benefits.

Volunteers posing as these vulnerable renters made telephone inquires about 982 apartments listed for rent across Toronto last summer. Each call was followed up within 1 1/2 hours by another volunteer with no discernable grounds for discrimination.

Each pair asked the same 12 questions and the landlords’ responses were recorded and analyzed for mild, moderate or severe differential treatment.

For example, to gauge discrimination against the South Asian man, one caller used a distinct South Asian accent and name, while the second caller had no accent and used a Western European name.

Discrimination against the South Asian man ranged from not having his call returned to being told the unit was already rented when it was still available.

The South Asian man also faced extra application requirements such as being asked for postdated cheques. And 31 per cent of the time, he was offered fewer move-in incentives such as free cable TV, the study found.

“In some cases, the landlord makes the unit so unappealing that he doesn’t have to turn the person down,” said John Fraser, the centre’s program director.

The centre’s results are similar to those from studies in the United States, where community-based organizations regularly monitor discrimination in rental housing, Fraser said.

He hopes Queen’s Park will fund local groups to use the centre’s model to track the situation.

The centre is also calling on the province to fund more human-rights cases based on housing discrimination and to beef up support for local agencies that help households facing these barriers.

Education is also key, says Barbara Hall, chief of Ontario’s Human Rights Commission, which held consultations on housing discrimination last year and will release a related policy document this summer.

“I think it’s fair to say most people are not aware there is a human rights component to housing,” Hall said in an interview.

“The commission has never focused on this issue and it’s something we and other commissions in Canada are just beginning to investigate.”

The study’s findings translate into tens of thousands of Torontonians potentially facing discrimination, including about 6,000 single parents, 2,000 of whom are single black parents like Stewart.

About 10,000 South Asians and nearly 15,000 Torontonians receiving Ontario Works or Ontario Disability Support Program benefits and more than 8,000 people with schizophrenia in Toronto experience significant discriminatory barriers every year, the study says.

And the numbers likely are low because those who don’t face discrimination during the initial phone call could be treated unfairly when they view the apartment or fill out an application, it adds.