Senior With Low Digital Literacy Evicted From Home For Failing To Pay $25 Rent Increase, Now Facing Homelessness While Battling Cancer
The Victoria Tenants Union is drawing attention to the plight of Mark Plank, a 63-year old man living above Moka House Coffee at 349 Cook Street, who has been ordered to vacate his apartment by the end of March. The cause of eviction is failure to pay a $24.84 rent increase that went into effect on December 1st, 2025. According to Plank, he would have been happy to pay the increase – he was simply unaware of it.
Plank, who does not own a computer and uses an old flip phone, was obliged to pay his rent through an automatic rent-payment app called Letus that he does not know how to use. He says a helpful neighbour set up his Letus account, using an email account that Mr. Plank does not use to do so. The rent increase notice was sent to this unused email account where it sat unnoticed.
Other tenants in the building had rent increase notices posted on their doors. It is unclear why Plank was not given a physical notice of rent increase.
Due to his failure to pay the extra $24.84, AQP Management, which manages the property, then emailed a 10-day eviction notice on December 12th to this same email address, where it too went unnoticed.
Plank was nonetheless charged rent for January and February, with the pre-increase amount that he had authorized being withdrawn from his account for both months.
AQP Management then filed for a dispute resolution hearing at the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) for February 20th. Although Plank became aware of the rent increase before that hearing and paid the outstanding balance in full, AQP nonetheless sought an 8-day vacate order from the RTB. Plank says this was served to him on February 22nd, by which he had just 6 days left to vacate the property. Only after the Together Against Poverty Society (TAPS) contacted AQP Management on Plank’s behalf was he given until the end of March to vacate the apartment.
Mr. Plank, who suffers from emphysema and is undergoing treatment for colon cancer, says he does not know where he is going to go if he is forced to leave the apartment that has been his home for the last six years. He faces a significant challenge in finding a new home given that the vast majority of available rentals are now advertised online only, for example on Facebook Marketplace.
Landlords in BC are effectively incentivized to evict long-term tenants, and to replace them with new ones who can be charged current market rents, by the absence of vacancy control (or unit-based rent control). Moreover, the Victoria Tenants Union has noted that of the eight rental units in the building, three are already unoccupied – the first of which was vacated about two years ago, according to the remaining tenants. This suggests that the owners may be emptying the building of residential tenants in anticipation of an upcoming renovation or demolition. Tenants evicted in advance of a demolition are not entitled to compensation mandated for those displaced by redevelopment under the City of Victoria’s recently-codified Tenant Protection Bylaw.
AQP Management is run by its founder, Andrew Békés, the former director and Chair of LandlordBC. They manage the 349 Cook Street property for its joint owners: Sea-Weight Properties Ltd. (owned by Stephanie Burr, Samuel Burr, and Imogen Burr), and Superway Food Market Ltd. (owned by Au Hoi Ting and Au Wah Heung).
“Please let me stay in my home, in my community” said Mark Plank. “I’m happy to pay the rent increase. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I have to leave.”
Mark’s neighbour, Maita Waters, said “I have lived next door to Marco [Plank] for over 5 years and he has been an amazing neighbour. Marco is kind, generous and always has a treat in his pocket for my dog. When my mother was subletting my place for a month last summer Marco brought her flowers for mothers day. Before my partner moved in with me I felt safe living alone because I knew Marco was on the other side of the wall and would be here in an instant if I needed help. He is a kind and good man and does not in any way deserve to be evicted and discriminated against because of a misunderstanding due to his not being tech savvy. There is obvious push to rid us from our homes and no regard for the good people who live in them.”
“This is a clear illustration of the incompatibility of the market and housing,” said Harland Bird of the Victoria Tenants Union. “This is an opportunistic, profit-driven eviction of a vulnerable senior who is battling cancer. But as far as we can tell, it is perfectly legal. This is a failure of a system that allows people to profit from housing, which is a human need. This must change. But until then, we appeal to humanity, to common decency. We call on the Burr and Au family owners to do the right thing and direct AQP Management to allow Mr. Plank to stay in his home and pay the increased rent amount.”
The Victoria Tenants Union also notes that there is a well-publicized “problem tenant” narrative according to which existing tenancy law empowers tenants to live rent-free for long periods of time while their landlords are powerless to evict them. In reality, however, evictions for non-payment (or even partial payment) of rent in BC require a mere 10-days notice, which wreaks havoc in tenant’s lives. Even when so-called “problem tenants” refuse to comply with these eviction orders, a bailiff will typically physically remove them about 70 days after the rent was due, according to Greater Vancouver Tenant & Property Management Ltd. While this can be an inconvenience for some landlords, increasingly landlords are corporations for whom this inconvenience is negligible.
On the other hand, unreasonable and callous “problem landlords” often have a catastrophic impact on the lives of tenants, many of whom end up unhoused as a result.
The Victoria Tenants Union calls for massive public investment in non-market housing, as well as revised provincial tenancy laws that prevent corporate landlords from hiding behind legislation ostensibly intended to protect “Mom-and-Pop” landlords, strengthen tenants’ security of tenure, including protecting seniors and those with low digital literacy from opportunistic eviction, and enhance their ability to dispute evictions. We also call for vacancy control and legal recognition of collective bargaining rights for tenants.
Mark Plank standing in front of 349 Cook Street.
