The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the provincial government to change landlord-tenant legislation to allow the eviction of high-income renters continuing to live in public housing complexes.

An access-to-information request filed by the CTF found 31 tenants who earn more than $100,000 a year are living in properties run by the Calgary Housing Company.

The tenants are not receiving subsidies and are a holdover from a policy that rented a small number of CHC units at market rates to encourage diversity in the buildings and generate income for the corporation.

The current number of six-figure households is down from 47 last year, but the CTF said the ones who remain are occupying spaces needed by 3,000 applicants on Calgary Housing’s waiting list.

Calgary Housing manages and operates more than 10,000 subsidized and affordable housing units.

The company has eliminated the market rent program and has eligibility requirements based on total household income and the size of the home. For example, the maximum allowable income for a three-bedroom unit is $55,000.

Tenants who moved in after 2011 have to disclose their income annually to ensure it meets eligibility requirements, but the rule doesn’t apply retroactively to those who moved in prior to the change.

Pre-2011 tenants who exceed the income thresholds rent month-to-month, but there are no provisions in the Residential Tenancies Act allowing Calgary Housing to retroactively apply the income test and evict them.

“It’s time for the province to step in with legislation that allows the CHC and other subsidized housing authorities to kick the rich out of these units,” CTF Alberta director Derek Fildebrandt said.