Tuesday, November 23, 2021

MINING IS ECOCIDE
UK’s Hochschild fights Peru’s plans to close mines over environmental impact


London-listed firm says it will ‘vigorously defend’ plan to continue mining gold and silver

Peru’s Yanacocha goldmine, a joint venture that includes Newmont Mining Corp. Hochschild is threatened with the closure of two of its mines. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images


Jillian Ambrose
Mon 22 Nov 2021 

The UK metals company Hochschild Mining is to fight plans by Peru’s government to hasten the closure of several mines in the southern Ayacucho region because of concerns over their environmental impact.

The London-listed mining company has promised to “vigorously defend” its plan to continue mining gold and silver from two mines – Pallancata and Inmaculada – which it claims operate under the “highest environmental standards”.

Ignacio Bustamante, the Hochschild chief executive, said he was “surprised” by the “illegal nature” of the government’s planned action and would “vigorously defend its rights to operate these mines using all available legal avenues”.
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Shares in Hochschild plunged nearly 40% on Monday morning, wiping more than £300m off the value of the company, after the Peruvian prime minister, Mirtha Vásquez, told local media over the weekend that four mines in the southern Ayacucho region would be barred from further expansion, and would be closed “as soon as possible”. They closed down 27%, the lowest since April 2020.

Hochschild said it had “not received any formal communication from the government regarding this matter”.

The plan could have severe consequences for Lima-headquartered Hochschild, which sources more than two-thirds of its gold and silver from its Peruvian mines.

The announcement is likely to raise hackles throughout the mining sector in Peru, the world’s second largest producer of copper, which includes UK miners Anglo American, Newmont, Glencore and Freeport-McMoRan. Peru’s mines are also operated by China’s MMG and Chinalco alongside local producers such as Buenaventura.

Peru’s mining industry has been linked to a string of environmental issues in recent years including deforestation, pollution and the mistreatment of environmental activists.

Bustamante said: “Our goal is to continue investing in Peru, growing our resources and extending mine lives, in accordance with the Peruvian legal framework.”

Hochschild said it was a significant employer in the region, employing more than 5,000 people directly and about 40,000 indirectly, and has long-term investment plans for the local region.

“We are prepared to enter into a dialogue with the government in order to resolve any misunderstandings with respect to our mining operations. However, given the illegal nature of the proposed action, the company will vigorously defend its rights to operate these mines using all available legal avenues,” Bustamante added.

Hochschild shares tank after Peru nixes key mine extensions

Henry Lazenby | November 22, 2021 

Hochschild Mining’s Inmaculada mine in Peru. Credit: Hochschild Mines.

London-based Hochschild Mining (LSE: HOC; US-OTC: HCHDF) says it will fight what it claims are “illegal” efforts by Peru to close and block extensions of its Pallancata and Inmaculada silver mines on environmental grounds.


The company said in a statement Monday it had learned via media reports that Peru’s head of cabinet, certain vice-ministers and regional authorities in the town of Coracora in the Ayacucho region had signed minutes of a meeting that detailed alleged environmental complaints.

The minutes also state that a commission has been established to negotiate the timetable and terms for the closure of specific mining projects in southern Ayacucho, including the company’s Pallancata and Inmaculada mines.

According to Hochschild, the Peruvian head of cabinet subsequently indicated that approvals would no longer be granted to facilitate additional mining or exploration activities concerning these mining operations.

Hochschild said it had not received any formal communication from the government regarding this matter. The news was enough to scuttle the value of the company’s London-listed shares, sending them down nearly 60% in early morning trading.

ShareCast News reported over the weekend that Peru’s Prime Minister Mirtha Vasquez said that four mines in the nation’s Ayacucho region would be closed “as soon as possible.”

However, Hochschild said it would defend its position in Peru and asserted that its mines operated under the “highest environmental standards.”

“Our goal is to continue investing in Peru,” Hochschild chief executive Ignacio Bustamante said in a statement. “However, given the illegal nature of the proposed action, the company will vigorously defend its rights to operate these mines using all available legal avenues.”

He said the company would seek to enter dialogue with the Peru government to resolve any “misunderstandings” concerning its mining operations.

The communities close to the affected operations and the trade unions representing the operations’ workforce have issued formal statements supporting Hochschild. The company employs more than 5,000 people directly and about 40,000 people indirectly in Peru.

Hochschild’s Inmaculada mine is the company’s most significant, representing more than 60% of its cash flows, according to its latest 2020 annual report.

Both the mines account for the bulk of the company’s output. In 2020, the Immaculada mine produced 15.14 million silver-equivalent ounces and the Pallancata mine produced 4.79 million silver-equivalent ounces.

BMO Capital Markets said in a research note the announcements over the weekend would probably cast a cloud of uncertainty over the future of the operations.

“Although Hochschild will not go down without a fight, it is very difficult for us to envision a scenario where the stock outperforms, given the current government’s stance on the operations; we are therefore moving to the sidelines with a ‘Market Perform’ rating until more certainty emerges,” said analyst Ryan Thompson.

Hochschild shares tumbled on the news and were down 57.5% at 70p each by 08:30 GMT.

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CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

JPM settle spoofing lawsuit with $60mln payment

Rajan Dhall  

(Kitco News) - Reuters have reported that JPMorgan Chase & Co has agreed to pay $60 million to settle class-action litigation by investors who accused the largest U.S. bank of manipulating prices of precious metals futures and options.

U.S. government investigations into a form of illegal trading in precious metals and U.S. Treasury markets, known as spoofing. Spoofing is where traders place orders they intend to cancel, hoping to move prices to benefit their market positions. For example, a trader could put a massive bid in to buy gold underneath the current price in the hope that other traders will see it and start buying. This could push the price higher when the original bid was never meant to be filled. All the while the traders could be holding the commodity watching the price rise.

The U.S. investment bank did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement, which covers traders in precious metals futures and options from March 2008 to August 2016 and requires approval by a federal judge in Manhattan.

Lawyers for the investors called the accord "substantively fair," citing among other reasons the risks of continued litigation.
The payout would recover about 7% of the estimated $915 million of classwide damages, the lawyers added. JPMorgan declined to comment.

In September 2020, JPMorgan entered a deferred prosecution agreement and agreed to pay $920 million, including a $436 million criminal fine, to settle U.S. government probes into spoofing in precious metals and Treasuries. The New York-based bank in September reached a $15.7 million settlement with investors over Treasury spoofing. Lawyers for the precious metals investors plan to seek up to one-third of their settlement, or $20 million, to cover legal fees.

JPMorgan is not the only bank that has been in hot water over spoofing. U.S. authorities investigated two former employees of Deutsche Bank traders who were found guilty of manipulating gold and silver prices. After a two-week court case (Seltember 2020) a federal judge in Chicago found James Vorley, 42, of the United Kingdom, and Cedric Chanu, 40, of France and the United Arab Emirates, were convicted of three counts and seven counts, respectively, of wire fraud affecting a financial institution. Let's hope this latest action can help clean up market manipulation.

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CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Toronto Parking Authority tried to sell public land in pricey midtown area to condo developer

Land was earmarked for a public park north of Yonge

Street and Eglinton Avenue

Michael Smee · CBC News · 
The Green P lot at Yonge Street and Castlefield Avenue. At right is the old Capitol Theatre. The new condo project will include a 10-metre strip of the lot along the theatre's back wall. (Grant Linton/CBC)

The agency that oversees parking in Toronto tried to sell a piece of prime midtown property to a condo developer without city permission —  even though staff had identified the land as a good spot for a much-needed neighbourhood park, CBC News has learned.

The land sale agreement involving the Toronto Parking Authority (TPA) would have seen the Green P lot on Castlefield Avenue, a few blocks north of Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue, transformed into a block-long condo tower, but councillors found out about the deal in June of 2018 and put a stop to it.

The city solicitor asked council last week to keep the deal a secret. But CBC News pieced together the timeline and the details of the agreement and its aftermath by speaking with the area city councillor and then reviewing legal and real estate records for the property. The city, the TPA and the developer all declined to go on the record for this story. 

"It was quite astonishing," Coun. Mike Colle, who represents the neighbourhood, told CBC Toronto. "The TPA obviously did not do something that was kosher. [It was] very disturbing ... I'm glad that we were able to get the park back."

Coun. Mike Colle, who represents Ward 8, Eglinton-Lawrence, says he is relieved the city was able to win back the parking lot property, which he wants transformed into a park. (Grant Linton/CBC )

The agreement led to several years of legal wrangling and negotiations. Last week, after three years of efforts behind the scenes and a lawsuit, city council voted to take the city solicitor's advice and keep the details of a settlement it reached with the developer confidential, citing the potential for further litigation over the botched TPA deal. 

The TPA doesn't own the land that it manages. Instead, it oversees it on behalf of the city. According to city documents, the TPA  didn't have the necessary permission from council when it agreed to sell the land in 2016, 

Although the Castlefield sale had not yet been finalized with the developer, Madison Group, the original agreement was still in place in June of 2018, about a month after city staff identified the four-hectare lot as a good spot for a neighbourhood park.

And as far back as 2014, commercial parking lots in the neighbourhood had been identified by city staff as potential new parks.

The Yonge-Eglinton area is undergoing intensification after the city identified it as a neighbourhood that could sustain a larger population. (Grant Linton/CBC)

It wasn't until its June 2018 meeting that council instructed city staff to try to nix the sale.

That decision led to a lawsuit about two months later by Madison Group against the city for breaking the original agreement.

That lawsuit dragged on for two years, during which the city could have been developing the new Castlefield park, according to Colle, who has championed that effort.

"The area's being flooded with wall-to-wall condos," Colle said. "We need more green space, parks, desperately."

City staff have written in the past that residents of the Yonge-Eglinton neighbourhood are among the most starved for green space in the city, with fewer than 43 hectares —  or less than half a football field — of parkland per 1,000 people.

The lawsuit was finally settled in September of 2020, when the city and Madison agreed to swap parcels of land, each worth about $1 million.

An ad for the new condo complex that Madison Group plans to build using the old Capitol Theatre, and part of a Green P lot at Yonge Street and Castlefield Avenue. (Chris Ensing/CBC)

Madison currently owns the closed Capitol Theatre on the northwest corner of Yonge Street and Castlefield Avenue, which it planned to develop into a condo tower. That building could have stretched the full block, from Yonge to Duplex Avenue, had the parking lot sale gone through.

Instead, in the land swap, Madison gets only the easternmost strip of the Green P lot, expanding its footprint for the condo building by about 10 metres. In return, the city gets a 10-metre strip of land along the lot's northern edge.

It's unclear how much money would have changed hands, had the TPA agreement to sell Madison the full lot been finalized, or how much time city legal staff spent fighting the court battle.

Neither the TPA nor the city will talk about the deal or its aftermath. Both say confidentiality agreements are in place.

Former city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who sat on the TPA board at the time of the deal with Madison, said he doesn't remember hearing anything about it. 

"I don't recall any reports coming to the board about it," he said.

The TPA is no stranger to controversy. Just a few months before the December, 2016 Castlefield sale agreement was signed, the city's auditor, Beverly Romeo-Beehler, issued the first of two reports slamming the authority for its handling of another land deal — the attempted purchase of an Arrow Road lot for about $2.5 million more than its actual value. That controversy led city council to fire the entire TPA board of directors.

'You can barely see the sky'

Shari Lash, vice chair of the Eglinton Park Residents Association and a 12-year resident of the area, agreed her neighbourhood desperately needs this park.

"It almost slipped through our fingers," she told CBC Toronto.

"There's so much development you can barely see the sky," she said. "There are shadows constantly, and there are going to be more of those shadows because the buildings are getting higher and higher. We just need to have spaces for us."

Shari Lash, who is an area resident, is pictured here in the parking lot that will eventually be turned into a music-themed park. (Chris Ensing/CBC)

Three months ago, the Castlefield lot was formally rezoned as parkland, according to Colle.

"I'm hoping by early 2023," the new, music-themed park will open on what was once a parking lot, he said.  

And as for the opening ceremonies? He's hoping to get singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell to attend, and perform her song Big Yellow Taxi.

"You know, 'They paved paradise'? We want to do the opposite here. We want to make it into a park."

With files from Nicole Brockbank, John Lancaster and Chris Ensing

CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices|About CBC News
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Workers want a flexible future at work. What do employers want?

Employers are trying to map out post-pandemic plans

Geoff Nixon · CBC News · 
Across Canada, employers are trying to map out what's best for their organizations in a post-pandemic era, in terms of how they'll structure their working arrangements. (Southworks/Shutterstock)

In the past 12 months, Noah Arney changed jobs, moved provinces and returned to the office.

In doing so, he's benefited from both office life and home-based work — including when he started his new job in Kamloops, B.C.

"I was able to to change jobs without having to move my family in January — and if you've ever been in Calgary in January, it's a good thing not to have to do that," said Arney, a career development professional, who actually moved to B.C. months later.

Noah Arney, a B.C.-based career development professional, has seen the advantages of both working at home and in an office setting. (Submitted by Noah Arney)

Now, Arney is working in an office again and that suits him, too, as he builds new connections and gets up to speed in his new job.

"It's been a strange experience, but I've really enjoyed it," said Arney.

Across Canada, employers are trying to map out what's best for their organizations in a post-pandemic era, in terms of how they'll structure their working arrangements going forward and how that will affect employees.

Yet employers are under pressure to embrace a more flexible future, and it seems some larger organizations are listening.

More flexibility

At Microsoft Canada, there's an expectation the future will be different for its more than 4,000 Canadian employees.

"We believe extreme flexibility and hybrid work will define the post-pandemic workplace," Microsoft spokesperson Lisa Gibson told CBC News via email.

A Microsoft Canada spokesperson told CBC News that the company believes 'flexibility and hybrid work will define the post-pandemic workplace.' The company employs more than 4,000 people in Canada. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

Gibson said Microsoft was equipped for remote work before COVID-19 and some of its staff did work outside the office occasionally. But she said the pandemic saw "the overwhelming majority" work from home full-time.

As the pandemic eases and the company fully reopens its operations, the majority of staff will be able to work from home at least half the time — and they won't need managerial approval to do so.

The tech sector is one where most jobs can be done remotely. The people seeking those jobs know that, and a lot of them want that flexibility.

Karen Agulnik, a senior account manager with Toronto-based ARES Staffing Solutions, says that hybrid has become "the buzzword," particularly in the IT sector. But other sectors have a mix of positions with varying suitability for remote working arrangements.

Some types of employment lend themselves to remote work more easily than others. (Jenny Kane/The Associated Press)

Alberta's ATB Financial has had a mix of arrangements during the pandemic.

Staff working in branches have continued working on-site — albeit with necessary COVID-era adjustments — while staff whose roles could be done remotely were asked to work at home.

For corporate team members still working at home, the goal is for them to spend more time in the office as soon as mid-January.

In an emailed statement, Tara Lockyer, ATB's chief people officer, said the financial institution, which employs more than 5,000, has "a strong desire" for its corporate team members to work in the office at least some of the time.

Who has control?

Yu-Ping Chen, an associate professor in the department of management at Montreal's Concordia University, believes there are a number of downsides to working from home — and in his view, they outweigh the advantages.

Yu-Ping Chen, an associate professor at Concordia University, says some companies with people working at home during the pandemic are feeling a loss of control. (Submitted by Yu-Ping Chen)

The negatives include distraction and fatigue stemming from long periods of working online, a blurring of the lines between work and home life, as well as pressure to be responsive to work demands outside of office hours.

Meanwhile, Chen said, employers "are feeling a loss of control" amid a redistributed, home-based workforce.

And with millions of Canadians now used to working at home, it's clear that regaining that control may face some pushback from employees.

"Some of them ... are just so used to working from home," said Chen, who predicts some portion of the workforce will never return to the office, even after the pandemic recedes.

Not the same at home

For Agulnik, a veteran recruiter, working from home is not a problem.

But she thinks it's a different story when it comes to training new people, as they need more in-person attention.

Younger people taking their first steps in a career are the very people Arney works with as a career services co-ordinator.

WATCH |  A right to disconnect? 

Ontario proposes right-to-disconnect legislation for workers

29 days ago
2:00
The Ontario government has proposed legislation giving workers the right to disconnect, claiming it would help achieve a better work-life balance. But countries that have implemented similar policies, including France, say having set 'off' hours didn’t solve the problem. 2:00

From what he's seen, the incoming recruits don't seem to have "a definite preference one way or the other" when it comes to working from home or in an office.

But they are weighing the advantages of being in an office at a crucial time in their working lives.

"I think a lot of them really do want to have those one-to-one, in-person interactions," said Arney, noting a lot of workplace learning takes place during informal, face-to-face conversations.

"But the pandemic's not over and I think they're very aware of that."

Listening to feedback

At Klick Health, a health marketing company that employs more than 1,000 people in Canada and the United States, most employees are still working from home.

That balance is shifting a bit, as a limited number of employees have voluntarily returned to in-person work.

WATCH | The career impact of WFH: 

Remote work might inhibit career advancement, some experts say

5 months ago
2:03
Many Canadians want to continue working from home after the pandemic, but those who do, or opt for a hybrid model, may find it limits career advancement and promotions. 2:03

"More and more are choosing to come into the office, notably to collaborate on projects," Glenn Zujew, the company's chief people officer, told CBC News in an emailed statement.

Zujew said internal surveys have indicated at least 35 per cent of Klick staff aren't "quite ready" to come back to in-person work yet, while "many" want to be back in the office eventually.

The company will soon be launching listening sessions "to dig deeper into these areas."

ATB Financial's Lockyer said there's a recognition that some work can be done better in a remote setting, while other kinds of work "need more collaboration and interaction."

ATB Financial, which employs more than 5,000 people in Alberta, has 'a strong desire' for its corporate team members to work in the office at least some of the time. (Submitted by ATB Financial)

To that end, the company is talking to its leaders and team members to understand "where the work is best done."

At Microsoft, Gibson said the company has been hearing that workers want to be able to collaborate more directly with their colleagues, but also want to retain their remote working capabilities.

"We refer to this trend as the hybrid work paradox — whereby employees want the flexibility of remote work as well as the inspiration and ease of in-person collaboration," said Gibson.

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123456789
Do you use one of the 20 most common passwords in Canada?

Tom YunCTVNews.ca writer
Published Sunday, November 21, 2021 


TORONTO -- Cybersecurity company NordPass, which sells password managements services, has published its list of the top 200 most common passwords in Canada and says too many Canadians are using passwords that can be easily guessed.

This year's list of most common passwords in Canada was topped by the usual suspects, such as "password," "qwerty," "abc123" and different variations of "123456." These passwords also dominated the list of most common passwords in other countries and around the world.

But there were a few entries that were unique to Canada. NordPass says Canadians had "perhaps the largest number of country-related passwords." "canada" was the 15th-most-common password in this country. Other common country-related passwords on the list include "toronto," "montreal" and "canada1."

Related Links
List of the 200 most common paswords

Sports was found to be another frequently occurring theme. Fittingly, "hockey" was the 11th-most-common password in Canada while "soccer," " baseball" and "basketball" ranked lower on the list.

There were also differences in the types of passwords preferred by men and women. Canadian men were more than three times as likely as women to use the password "hockey," while passwords like "iloveyou," "princess" and "sunshine" were far more common among women.

The researchers also found that many Canadians were using their own names as their password. "tiffany" was the eighth-most-common password in Canada. Names like "maggie," "matthew," "bailey," "michelle" and "andrew" were also in the top 50.

NordPass says 144 out of the top 200 most common passwords in Canada can be cracked in less than one second. Of the 50 countries it analyzed, the firm says Canada had the eighth highest number of passwords leaked per capita.

“Unfortunately, passwords keep getting weaker and people still don’t maintain proper password hygiene,” NordPass Jonas Karklys said in a news release. “It’s important to understand that passwords are the gateway to our digital lives, and with us spending more and more time online, it’s becoming enormously important to take better care of our cybersecurity.”

NordPass recommends using a unique password for every account. A good password should be at least 12 characters long with a combination of numbers, letters and symbols.

Since the average user has more than 100 accounts, storing them in a password manager can make it easier to keep track of passwords, Nordpass says. Using multi-factor authentication, such as a text message code or an authenticator app, can also add an additional layer of protection.

THE TOP 20 MOST COMMON PASSWORDS IN CANADA
123456
password
123456789
12345
12345678
qwerty
abc123
tiffany
password1
testing
hockey
1234567
iloveyou
1234
canada
1234567890
111111
sunshine
123123
dragon

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Lower rent, fewer chores: why grown-up dorm life might be the answer for Toronto’s housing-hungry millennials

 NOV 21, 2021

Hubert de Blignieres doesn’t want to deal with moving furniture and dishes and he certainly doesn’t want to contend with problematic roommates.

So for most of the last two years, de Blignieres, 35, has been renting a bedroom in a fully furnished, shared, four-storey townhouse in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood, where he is also working to start a business.

He rented the master bedroom before the pandemic prompted him to return to his hometown of Paris, France. Now that he’s back in Toronto, he is renting a secondary bedroom for $1,600 a month and he scoffs at the idea of letting his own apartment.

In a city where one-bedroom apartments are going for north of $2,000 a month on average, more companies are betting on co-living — a grown-up version of dorm life — to take off in Toronto the way it has in other expensive locales such as San Francisco and New York.

One Toronto developer has already submitted plans to build a co-living community in the Weston area, while another New York-based co-living company is planning to bring 650 units here.

Co-living spaces, where adults rent a room in a shared townhouse or apartment for less than they would pay for a one-bedroom or studio apartment, often comes with other perks, such as dry-cleaning pickup, high-end amenities and — something many single Torontonians have been missing during the pandemic — company.

The home de Blignieres currently shares with two other people is operated by a company called Sociable Living, one of the city’s first co-living operators. It is cleaned weekly and stocked regularly with everyday items from toilet paper and shampoo to dish soap — everything except food.

“It’s very convenient. I hate moving in. I hate furniture, so it’s super easy for me. The location is the best. I’m 15 minutes from the airport — the UP (Express) train, that’s amazing,” he said.

Three or four tenants, depending on the size of the townhouse — matched by Sociable Living — share a common kitchen, living room, rooftop deck and, in some cases, a bathroom.

Co-living remains relatively unknown in Toronto, but that is changing.

Toronto developer EDEV is proposing a nine-storey building on Weston Road, north of Denison Road East, that would combine 26 co-living apartments with 16 traditional apartments. The proposal is before Etobicoke Community Council on Monday.

New York-based co-living company Common is also developing 650 units here, although it would not say where and when it expects those to be built. Meantime, it is designing and managing a mixed-use building in Ottawa as part of a master-planned development by Dreams Unlimited.

Common claims its co-living rooms rent for about 15 to 25 per cent less than a studio apartment in the same neighbourhood.

“I see so many similarities in Toronto’s housing crisis to what we’ve seen in places like New York City and Seattle, where Common was able to add more housing stock and attainable options for renters,” said CEO Brad Hargreaves in an email responding to questions from the Star.

EDEV’s co-living expert Vanessa Flint says while young adults will remember the community feeling of their college days, modern co-living spaces are very different than dorms or rooming houses.

They are beautifully designed homes that offer everything from luxe finishes and high-end coffee makers to services such as dry cleaning pickup, parcel delivery and apps that unlock doors or alert management when something needs to be repaired.

“This is appealing to a whole generation that uses Uber to get around, uses Uber Eats to get their food delivered every night. They’re living and enjoying life and having experiences,” said Flint.

The concept is most attractive, she said, to a mobile generation that doesn’t expect to work in the same place their entire career, that is less possession-oriented and more sustainability minded so they don’t necessarily want to buy their own appliances and dishes.

“It’s not because they can’t afford it. It’s because they don’t want it. They don’t want to put such a large percentage of their income toward their housing costs,” said Flint.

EDEV says Weston appeals to tenants among the 50,000 Pearson Airport-area workers and those who want to get downtown in 15 minutes.

Roman Bodnarchuk, the founder of Sociable Living, won’t say how many townhomes his company rents as co-living spaces in the Junction and on Berkeley Street downtown or in its expanded markets in Miami and Costa Rica.

“What I can tell you is, in our very first year (2019), we had over 100 residents,” he said.

Sociable Living tenants sign on for a three-month minimum stay but there is no longer term lease. Although there are exceptions, Bodnarchuk prefers to rent to singles. Couples tend to stay in and cook every night so they end up dominating the fridge space, he said.

Sociable Living solves a lot of the problems of renting, says Bodnarchuk. Newcomers to the city face a highly competitive rental market.

“Unless you have a great credit report, you’re not going to get a place,” he said.

Then there is the expense: “Let’s say you saw a one-bedroom apartment for $1,750. It sounds appealing. Except you haven’t factored in about $15,000 worth of stuff that you need to live,” he said.

That’s a huge investment in a gig economy, says Bodnarchuk. He claims Sociable Living saves its tenants an average of $500 a month on furniture and housekeeping costs.

“All you really need is a suitcase. We pay for all the utilities. We have the fastest internet in the city. We’ve got Netflix and 65-inch smart TVs. It’s all the best stuff but it’s stress free,” he said.

One of the biggest benefits of co-living is that it provides instant community, something Bodnarchuk says is rare in apartments and condos.

“Loneliness is an epidemic. It’s worse than smoking and people don’t even talk about it,” he said. “That’s why everyone in Toronto has a dog. That’s how they’re solving it — with an animal. We’re doing it with humans and I think it’s very powerful.”

He expects a schedule of regular social events, which have been suspended during the pandemic, to be reinstated in January.

With the exception of one person, de Blignieres says he has made friends with all the tenants who have moved through his townhouse.

“I’m French from France. We are used to sharing everything,” says de Blignieres. But, to make co-living work, there has to be respect for shared space.

“We have to be able to communicate and tell each other when there’s something we do that bothers the other one, explain to new people how it works — living with some rules in a community,” he said.

“When people listen to that, it’s really amazing. It’s really fun,” said de Blignieres, who has lately been enjoying jam sessions with a new flatmate, who plays guitar.

“We have a lovely time together,” he said of his two current roommates.

Bodnarchuk says he’s only ever had one roommate situation that went wrong. But there is always one empty room available so that, in the event of a situation doesn’t work out, someone can be instantly moved to a home in the same area.

Sociable Living is “creating a modern family,” he said. New tenants undergo the usual criminal record check and an interview with their prospective housemates, who can give a newcomer the thumbs down. But a modern family requires modern methods and Bodnarchuk also employs Artificial Intelligence (AI) in matching tenants.

“It sounds scary but it’s not,” he said. The AI, “reads every social media post that you’ve ever done on every platform. So within seconds (it) can read every Facebook, Twitter and Google post. Based on the words and the frequency that you use, it’s incredibly accurate at predicting your personality type. We can overlay that with the other roommates. We’ll know within seconds if it’s going to work or not,” he said.

Flint points out that co-living has been around forever. The latest format is driven by changing lifestyles.

“A lot of young professionals want to live in an urban area. Yet, to go and get a one bedroom (apartment) by themselves is quite costly,” she said.

Co-living is a relatively affordable alternative.

Tess Kalinowski is a Toronto-based reporter covering real estate for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @tesskalinowski

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