![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Sue-Rehberg-1024x768.jpg\")
Sue Rehberg\u2019s rent skyrocketed from $797 to $1,699, forcing her to leave her apartment on Portage Avenue. (Koby Mitchell, CityNews) <\/p>\nJust a few years ago, it was just $797 to rent a two-bedroom unit at Sue Rehberg\u2019s apartment building on Portage Avenue.<\/p>\n
But after a 113 per cent monthly rent increase, Rehberg and many other residents feel they have been forced out, leaving a once close-knit community broken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat building is basically vacant right now,\u201d Rehberg told CityNews.<\/p>\n
The building at 2345 Portage Avenue was taken over by new owners in 2024, and it\u2019s now managed and leased by Alliance Asset Management.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been two years of total chaos, of stress,\u201d said Rehberg, who moved there in 2023. \u201cAnd my heart just breaks for these older people that have been there since the \u201870s. And now on fixed incomes, what are they supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sue Rehberg\u2019s rent skyrocketed from $797 to $1,699, forcing her to leave her apartment on Portage Avenue. (Koby Mitchell, CityNews) <\/p>\n
In June 2024, Rehberg says tenants received a monthly increase of $450. After residents fought it for two years, she claims the increase was eventually reduced by $41 this past June. That brought Rehberg\u2019s rent to $1,206.<\/p>\n
But the dust had hardly settled when management increased the rent by another $493 effective Oct. 1, Rehberg says, bringing her total monthly rent to $1,699. She moved out last month.<\/p>\n
In a statement to CityNews, Alliance Asset Management says it spent $6.1 million renovating the 60-year-old building between December 2024 and May 2026 after a structural engineering firm found issues with the structure and the building\u2019s main systems.<\/p>\n
Some of those problems, according to Alliance Asset Management, were \u201csevere corrosion\u201d in the steel columns holding up the building; unreliable steel cables reinforcing the north parking deck; a foundation wall that had pushed in by six inches; and balcony concrete coming loose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did the work, and we kept people in their homes while we did it,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/2345-Portage-2-1024x768.jpg\")
Sue Rehberg says 2345 Portage is \u201cbasically vacant right now\u201d after a series of rent increases. (Koby Mitchell) <\/p>\n
The property management company says rents at 2345 Portage were able to stay low for the longest time \u201cbecause so little has been put into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen an owner keeps up with the work, rents stay closer to market, since the cost of major repairs can be recovered through the above-guideline process,\u201d it says. \u201c2345 Portage went decades without that kind of investment, so the rents before these increases were lower than they would have been in a building that had been looked after, and that lower number is the starting point people are now measuring from.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know a rent increase of this size is hard on the people who live here, and we want to be upfront about why it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Rehberg, though, the renovations were unnecessary, and she says many tenants would come home to unfinished renovations. She claims residents were compensated with a $100 gift card for food.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt got to a point where I hated going home,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause people knew me, and you walked into that building and it was just tension, and anger and frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rehberg, who works as a paralegal, has a real estate lawyer as a colleague; he\u2019s been advocating for Rehberg and is calling on more action from the Residential Tenancies Branch (RTB).<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be some proactive measures taken in terms of what really is a necessary renovation,\u201d Christopher Kozier said. \u201cWhat is cosmetic? What\u2019s discretionary? Can there be a role for people who live there to play in the decision-making process?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Christopher-Kozier-1024x768.jpg\")
Real estate lawyer Christopher Kozier is calling on more action from the Residential Tenancies Branch. (Koby Mitchell, CityNews)<\/p>\n
Alliance Asset Management says all the repairs were itemized and filed, with invoices, with the RTB. It says the Branch went through every invoice and \u201cspread each cost over the expected life of the work, up to eight years for structural repairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Minister of Public Service Delivery Mintu Sandhu, in a statement to CityNews, said in part: \u201cWe have been told by the RTB that they have been working with her (Rehberg) to make sure she knows her rights, and I am told they will be reaching out to her again. We also are making plans to have someone from the provincial government to reach out to her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rehberg says this is another case of tenants getting the short end of the stick.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these landlords can do whatever the hell they wanna do, and us tenants have to incur all the charges,\u201d she said. \u201cHow does that even work? How is that possible? And when is it going to stop?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tKeep it Factual<\/p>\n
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