Deborah and David Beatty knew the rented white farmhouse — with its weather-beaten shutters, views of open fields and spacious rooms — wouldn’t be theirs to keep forever.When developer Mattamy Homes bought the 160-year-old house in 2007, the Beattys knew that someday the Mississauga property would be used for part of a development that will ultimately extend across hundreds of acres of largely untouched land.Last week, after living there for close to 27 years, the couple was told they have three months to pack up and move out. What the Beattys will leave behind is something of a relic — and not just the structure, which Mississauga Heritage believes was built sometime between 1851 and 1858. The farmhouse, which sits off the Ninth Line near Doug Leavens Blvd., is also a holdover from a time when a family of limited means could afford to rent a home in or close to a major metropolitan centre in the GTA. “I don’t know what is going to happen to us,” Deborah Beatty, 66, told a hearing of the Landlord and Tenant Board in Mississauga. “I’ve never been homeless before and I don’t know what I will do with my pets.” The vacancy rate for three-bedroom homes in Mississauga was 1.1 per cent in 2018, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. But while the average rent for such a home is about $1,495, that figure is calculated using occupied, purpose-built rental properties — landlords can charge what they want for empty apartments and homes, and any new rental would cost far more. The couple started out paying about $1,000 per month but their landlord lowered the rent to $750 a few years ago when Deborah lost work. Now, “everything we have looked at is way out of our price range,” said Deborah, who asked the board for six more months to increase their chances of finding a place and give David, 70, time to heal from a stroke he suffered in August. Deborah has the forms for rent ...
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