Deborah and David Beatty knew the rented white farmhouse — with its weather-beaten shutters, views of open fields and spacious rooms — wouldn’t be theirs to keep forever.

When developer Mattamy Homes bought the 160-year-old house in 2007, the Beattys knew that someday the Mississauga property would be used for part of a development that will ultimately extend across hundreds of acres of largely untouched land.

Last week, after living there for close to 27 years, the couple was told they have three months to pack up and move out.

What the Beattys will leave behind is something of a relic — and not just the structure, which Mississauga Heritage believes was built sometime between 1851 and 1858. The farmhouse, which sits off the Ninth Line near Doug Leavens Blvd., is also a holdover from a time when a family of limited means could afford to rent a home in or close to a major metropolitan centre in the GTA.

“I don’t know what is going to happen to us,” Deborah Beatty, 66, told a hearing of the Landlord and Tenant Board in Mississauga.

“I’ve never been homeless before and I don’t know what I will do with my pets.”

The vacancy rate for three-bedroom homes in Mississauga was 1.1 per cent in 2018, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. But while the average rent for such a home is about $1,495, that figure is calculated using occupied, purpose-built rental properties — landlords can charge what they want for empty apartments and homes, and any new rental would cost far more.

The couple started out paying about $1,000 per month but their landlord lowered the rent to $750 a few years ago when Deborah lost work.

Now, “everything we have looked at is way out of our price range,” said Deborah, who asked the board for six more months to increase their chances of finding a place and give David, 70, time to heal from a stroke he suffered in August.

Deborah has the forms for rent geared to income housing but knows getting in is a very long shot. Seniors applying for subsidized housing in Mississauga, from one bedrooms through to five, can expect to wait from five and a half to eight years, according to the Region of Peel website, which notes that there are “thousands of residents on the wait list for a housing subsidy.”

Deborah and David Beatty knew the rented white farmhouse — with its weather-beaten shutters, views of open fields and spacious rooms — wouldn’t be theirs to keep forever.

Peel Region is moving forward with a Housing Master Plan, part of broader efforts to combat homelessness and housing need, and if provincial and federal funding is secured it could result in 5,364 new affordable rental units by 2034, 226 supportive units and 60 new emergency beds, according to the region’s website.

Arshed Bhatti, a housing and peer support worker with Punjabi Community Health Services, says that the best the couple might get for $750 to $1,000 in Peel Region is a shared basement apartment. “They will not be able to find a house,” he said.

Bhatti says relocating to the fringes of Peel might get them their own unit, but it would still likely be a basement apartment. “They will have to compromise on space because of their income bracket.”

And if they don’t find subsidized housing or some outside form of support, like extended family, Bhatti says the scarcity of housing in Peel means they could end up in a shelter.

The couple rely on Old Age Security and the Canada Pension Plan. One adult daughter lives with them and helps with rent but the couple doesn’t want to rely on her and doesn’t expect they could find a space big enough for three people to live.

They breed Bengal cats but healthy kittens and willing owners are never a guarantee.

When Landlord and Tenant Board member Aleksander Brkic granted the eviction order against the Beattys, he said nothing suggested the landlord was acting in bad faith.

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However, he said, David’s recent stroke did make things “a little less clear in my mind” and gave them until Jan. 31. Developments “are fraught with delays,” said Brkic and he said he didn’t expect a few more months would make or break this one.

He advised the Beattys to speak with board legal staff about resources for them to “get the ball rolling” on a place to live.

“It may not be a house, but it will be a home,” he said. “Wherever you hang your hat is your home.”

When Mattamy purchased the property for $4.4 million in 2007, very little about the couple’s living situation initially changed. The development company was a decent landlord, Deborah said, and while repairs weren’t always done quickly, the rent reduction when she lost her job helped.

The eviction process started in January and the couple was initially told to be out by April, but a flurry of confusing paperwork has prolonged what Deborah called an exhausting ordeal. “Everything has been on hold,” she said.

And based on what they say city planners explained to them about the development timelines, the Beattys are still not convinced that the house needs to be razed immediately.

Mattamy’s vice-president of communications Brent Carey said the company tried “to arrive at a mutually agreeable resolution by providing both a long notice period and generous support and assistance in the relocation process” before it ultimately asked the Landlord and Tenant Board to evict them.

“We will continue to reach out to the tenants to offer our assistance in this transition,” Carey said in an email.

But now, with just three months to find somewhere to live, the Beattys are not sure what their future holds. David’s stroke has left his mobility limited, and now neither of them can drive, making the search for a new home even more difficult. Deborah insists there must be a way to extend their stay a bit longer. “I still think it is still a not-now thing,” she said.

In the meantime, there is packing up possessions and fretting about the future of their cats, some of which they expect they’ll have to sell.

“I’d like to figure out how to get my pussy willow tree out of the ground,” Deborah said. “David says that is not happening.

“I might have to wait until they start digging.”