Residents feel trapped in subpar conditions
Infested carpets stinking water mould belching sinks stains substandard heating bed bugs windows wedged shut property that mysteriously goes missing and that might be blood splattered on the ceiling. These are some of the conditions tenants in two social housing projects in Calgary say they are accustomed to. They stay because there is nowhere else to go and the threat of losing their homes constantly dogs them.
Saadia Kendall 55 has lived in her 400-square-foot apartment in the Bridgeland Place high-rise for seven years. Like everyone in social housing her rent is calculated at 30 per cent of her income. For Kendall that is $285 per month. She says the apartment was dirty when she moved in and points out the stained walls and carpet and what she believes is blood on her ceiling which she says has always been there.
Her coffee table is covered with neatly organized piles of paperwork documents she hopes will serve as evidence of her subpar living conditions. Among them is a Ziploc bag containing insects she says infest her carpet. Notices from the building manager confirm exterminators have treated her apartment in the past for bed bugs and carpet beetles. What she has repeatedly asked for and what two doctor’s notes advise is to have the carpets replaced entirely.
In mid-April window stops were installed in all Bridgeland Place’s apartments to prevent the windows from opening wider than four inches and that was the last straw.
“It just seems like they just did it to be mean” says Kendall.
Bridgeland Place is owned and managed by the Calgary Housing Company (CHC). The non-profit CHC manages subsidized housing on behalf of the City of Calgary. It owns 96 properties throughout the city offering a total of 7005 residential units. Meanwhile approximately 3500 applicants sit on CHC’s waiting list.
However CHC is not the only corporation serving Calgarians who cannot afford market rent nor is it the only one in which tenants are dissatisfied. Directly across the river is Murdoch Manor a 361-unit seniors’ complex managed by Trinity Place Foundation itself a collaboration between the Anglican Cathedral and Calgary Catholic diocese that is entrusted with providing seniors’ subsidized housing in its six buildings in the city.
Lawrence Oshanek has lived in Murdoch Manor for the past four years. He says when residents returned after a 2013 flood evacuation that lasted two months the boilers that heat the complex were damaged beyond repair and some personal items were missing. As winter arrived and replacement boilers didn’t he and fellow residents opened their oven doors to keep their apartments warm.
“When they called us back from being evacuated they didn’t have an intercom system and we had no heat” says 86-year-old tenant Gloria Paulson. “We were without heat a good part of the winter. I had bought a little heater years ago then they had a lot of them here they were giving out to people but they didn’t tell you that. I tried to get another one because mine wasn’t heating up enough of the place…. It was so cold on the floor that I couldn’t step on it…. They said ‘no’ if I had my own then I couldn’t get another one.”
Paulson has lived in a bachelor suite in Murdoch Manor for eight years. “I had a hole in the ceiling. Sometimes when it rained the fluorescent light had water coming out of each side and you know something? I was afraid. I would never turn on my kitchen light because I was afraid of getting electrocuted or something. So I had this great big hole in my ceiling and I used to have nightmares about rats coming out of there” she says.
“I came from a five-bedroom house to this hole in the wall” she adds lamenting that she doesn’t think she will ever be moved into the one-bedroom unit she requested.
But Paulson says the building’s condition isn’t her biggest concern. She alleges tenants’ lose property under suspicious circumstances and that bothers her more.
“I had bedbugs up in [my apartment] everybody had…. We get checked every three months now…. I had to move all my stuff down to [apartment] 1220” she explains. She says the building manager helped her move her belongings including a case with her jade jewelry.
When the jewelry case was missing at the end of the day Paulson went to the building receptionist to ask the manager where it could be.
“She said ‘she’ll be back tomorrow.’ That was Wednesday. She didn’t show up Thursday Friday. And Monday when I went down to see her she couldn’t remember where she had put it but she says ‘oh don’t worry it’ll show up.’ Well this is almost two years later and it has never showed up” says Paulson. She alleges many of her belongings have vanished without a trace.
Fellow resident Florian who did not want his last name used alleges money he saved over the course of eight years to replace missing teeth disappeared during the flood evacuation. “I keep the money right on top of the fridge” he says explaining he feared if he deposited the cash in a bank it would affect his income assessment and cause his rent to increase beyond the current $530 a month which is similar to what Paulson pays.
“[When] the flood came over they kick us out and they said they have to change the fridges because the food inside no electricity got rotten…. I talked to [the manager] I said ‘I have some money in the room to fix my teeth and I don’t want those people to open the door and get the money.’ She said ‘Florian don’t worry. Nobody is in the building but the maintenance people me and another three people. So you are safe with me.’ And I insist to come to the room to get my money. She didn’t want it: ‘no no no please no.’”
Florian who rests his weight on an empty shopping cart in the communal dining room for lack of a walker says when he was allowed to return two months later he immediately sought out the envelope. He says there was still money in it but $3000 was gone. Though he has his suspicions about what happened he admits he cannot prove the money existed let alone who might have taken it.
“[So] why did I sign a new lease? I live on nothing. But if I go outside this nursery they’ll charge me for the same thing (an apartment) $1500” he says.
Though Bridgeland Place’s tenants don’t allege theft some say they are concerned about poor relations between residents and building management.
AISH (Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped) recipient Chris Clause 32 and his nine-year-old daughter have lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Bridgeland Place for seven years. He too complains of mould and insect infestations saying he fought with CHC representatives for four years to have his mouldy kitchen counter replaced. Yet he claims his main issue is dealing with management and his constant fear that he could be evicted.
Legal grounds for eviction or the reality of being evicted without notice is not as likely as tenants fear but many in social housing feel it as an ever-present threat because if they lost their current home they don’t know how they would get another one.
“There’s all kinds of lists [for social housing applicants] but it could take months. I’d end up couch-hopping and being on the streets with my kid” says Clause.
CHC’s tenancy agreement does say residents could potentially face eviction for breaching lease agreements typical even for market-price renters. Yet multiple notices posted in common areas of the complex remind tenants of the threat of eviction — for example if caught leaving garbage in hallways or items on building grounds.
“I fear that Calgary Housing will evict me” agrees Kendall. “I really can’t afford to live in the real world…. I put up with these conditions for the same reason everyone here does. I had no choice. I can’t work. My health is too poor. I needed this aid.”
Murdoch Manor’s manager told Fast Forward Weekly she was not permitted to give an interview and referred questions to Trinity Place Foundation CEO Lawrence Braul who did not respond to calls. Bridgeland Place’s manager also did not return interview requests but CHC communications manager Darren Nimegeers did.
First he explains the window stops were installed in Bridgeland Place because new building code rules require them in high-rise buildings. Next he says tenants need to be reassured they can’t be evicted without proof they breached their lease. If they are they have the right of appeal with CHC’s district manager and then the province’s residential tenancy dispute resolution service.
As for living conditions: “At a minimum all of our units are inspected at least annually. And then anytime there’s any you know if there’s damage or if there’s a deficiency or something broken repairs are done and then there’s a post-repair inspection. We have an asset management department that looks at that sort of thing the point being that maintenance isn’t simply done ad hoc” he says.
Kendall however says her apartment has never been inspected and Clause says the only repair his unit saw in seven years was to replace his mouldy kitchen counter.
“The challenge that we’ve got is the nature of the business that we’re in: a) it’s very very complicated and b) it’s dealing with people’s personal situations and their situations may vary from the other 6999 tenants” explains Nimegeers.
He says funding and management is complicated. CHC’s 96 properties are divided into eight categories depending on their funding sources. The 1021 units in the Federal Fixed Subsidy Portfolio receive different funding and are governed by different administrative conditions than the 210 in the Public Non-Profit Portfolio or the 1048 (including Bridgeland Place) in the city-owned community housing portfolio.
Nimegeers says because of this resources and operations between CHC properties “can vary dramatically…. There are constraints in some places and more flexibility in other places as to how maintenance and the building management program is funded and how it operates because of that complexity.”
In 2011 the CHC underwent a risk assessment. In their written report assessors warned “maintenance expenditures are increasing due to aging buildings operational inefficiencies tenant expectations and other environmental factors. CHC has limited sources of revenue to fund its required maintenance operations that is resulting in the failure of a number of properties.”
Nimegeers says issues such as mould or pests occasionally affect CHC buildings “but as any landlord with the number of buildings and units that we have would face occasionally issues do arise with issues like insects or pests and they’re managed.”
Even the tenants in this story say they know social housing is variable. They may feel their homes are subpar but are aware of other housing projects that appear to be more pleasant. Paulson says she dreams of winning a spot in low-income seniors housing in Grace Gardens on 17th Avenue S.W.
Raising conditions in social housing and providing enough to address the thousands of applicants languishing on waiting lists also seems to be a slow-motion dream. In April the federal government to the relief of the affordable housing advocates who had been lobbying for it since March 2013 finally renewed housing support funding for the next five years. At the same time however operating agreements that make up 80 per cent of federal funding for social housing are expiring on a rolling basis and will not be renewed.
When the provincial government tabled its 2014 budget in March homelessness programs received a 17 per cent funding boost. Unfortunately that’s only enough money to create 455 new units across Alberta. At the time Mayor Naheed Nenshi told the media it was a drop in the bucket as Calgary alone needs between 4000 and 5000 additional low-income housing units and according to current residents at Bridgeland Place it’s having a hard time keeping on top of the units it already has.
