Why this Toronto landlord is sleeping in his restaurant basement

So let's go downstairs. Yeah. At Stefan Bouquet's Beaches Restaurant, he shows us something you might not expect past the bar, dining tables and kitchen. So here's my team, the kitchen team there working. And here it is where I go and down the basement stairs, his home. So everything is sees pile up here and here, my rabbit hole, my bunk bed. For the last five months, he's been living in the basement amid tools and restaurant equipment, sleeping in a makeshift bed, hanging clothes wherever he can, getting work done at his cluttered desk. And I work so hard for 25 years to own this restaurant, and then suddenly I'm stuck here sleeping in the basement. It's not home. OK Does own a home, a unit in this condo near Cabbage Town. He's been renting it out but needed to move back in after he and his ex partner sold their house. But a much delayed Landlord and Tenant Board decision has left him in limbo. At the beginning of March 2023, he gave his tenant and own use eviction notice with five months to find a new place and filed an application with the LTB. Seven months later, the case was finally heard but adjourned until January. OK has been waiting for a decision ever since. The LTB says decisions are typically rendered within 30 days of the last hearing. OK has been waiting for more than 130 days. Nothing's been done. No resolve, no date, nothing. We've been phoning, complaining like emailing. Feel let down. That's what the word. I would feel let down by the government. Definitely, yeah. Last fiscal year, the LTB received more than 73,000 applications. At the end, there were more than 53,000 unresolved cases. The latest available data shows it's been taking longer for cases to be decided. In 2022, it took an average of 278 days for a decision to be made from the timely application was filed, five times longer compared to 2018. OK's case has taken 450 days and counting. Yeah, the land antenna board is failing Ontarians. Kathy Laird is with a group that keeps tabs on the province's tribunals. She says there's no reason a decision should take longer than 30 days. Matter the complexity. They're supposed to know the law. There's there. It's it's the job of the Lander antenna board to hear the evidence and assess it and render a decision. Tribunals Ontario says it's chipping away at the backlog and that the case count has dropped each month so far this year and it expects that progress to continue. The Ministry of the Attorney General says it's spending six and a half million dollars on appointing more adjudicators and staff and providing training to ensure that cases are dealt with more efficiently. About a year ago we were looking at a 10 month wait and now we'll around four months. This long time paralegal says well, there's still a backlog. She's seeing cases get resolved quicker. I'm still dealing with files, some tenant files for 2022. They're still, we're just kind of getting to those ones now and certainly the 2020 Threes, but they're working hard to clear the backlog. Poquet's tenant has continued to pay rent and doesn't have to leave unless the LTB decides. In Poquet's favor, he thought the basement abode would be temporary, never expecting the decision to take this long, which is why he hasn't rented a place on a monthly basis. Plus, he says I should not have to do that. I don't know. I should be allowed to move to my property. Tribunals Ontario didn't respond to questions about why Poquet's case is taking so long. Angelina King, CBC News, Toronto.