The BC Government has invested 3.7 million dollars into the Residential Tenancy Branch, the body that handles renters and landlords in the province.
That money has been spent on hiring staff, cutting wait times, and streamlining resolution solutions between renters and landlords.
Spencer Chandra Herbert, chair of the Rental Housing Task Force & NPD MLA for Vancouver-West End, says most of the issues are resolved over the phone, but with the new funding they have been able to cut down on the waits for bigger issues.
"If you have an urgent matter, an issue, maybe it's an eviction maybe it's an issue with repairs or something like that. Under the BC Liberals it was about 11 weeks you would be waiting before you could get resonable response through an arbitration, through a hearing. That's been cut almost in half to about 5 weeks, still that's a while, certainly is you have an urgent issue, but it's a huge improvement"
Herbert adds that wait times for getting information has been cut from an hour down to 8 minutes, which is key to keeping people informed so they don't end up in a situation where they are being taken advantage of because they don't know their rights.
He says the wait times for money requests, such as late rent or damage deposit collection, has also been cut from 26 to 14 weeks.
Herbert adds they are also putting together a Compliance and Enforcement Unit, to catch people abusing their tenants or cheating the system.