‘Get on the ball, Manitoba Housing’

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This article was published 27/08/2011 (5519 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

First it was bedbugs, then black mould and now a failing grade on a kitchen sink could force Osborne House to order out to feed 45 mothers and children at the women’s shelter, its executive director said Friday.

Barbara Judt said Manitoba Health inspectors warned they will force the shelter to shut down its kitchen if a sink in a countertop rotted with mould isn’t replaced.

She said Manitoba Housing owns the building and is responsible for its maintenance, but she’s having trouble getting workers to do more than only minor repairs.

Staff have been doing work on their own or asking relatives to come in to help them out.

“The building has seen better days and a building that houses 45 women and children needs constant care and constant maintenance and it’s not been kept up,” Judt said.

Judt said if the sink forces the kitchen to shut down, she’ll order meals in and send the bills out to Manitoba Housing.

“We’ve had meetings. I’ve written the minister… and I’ve been passed around,” she said.

Osborne House is a woman’s shelter that depends on $1.8 million in provincial operating grants a year, plus private fundraising. It has neither the funding nor the authority to carry out building renovations.

In 2009, it sheltered and fielded calls from 3,000 women.

“Manitoba Housing is supposed to get on the ball. They own the building and they are responsible for maintenance,” Judt said.

On Friday, housing workers were on site to repair electrical wiring.

A week ago, they caulked a sink.

The instances are examples of patchwork repairs, but the best illustration of what frustrates Osborne House staff is the battle of the bedbugs.

A dozen times exterminators this year treated the facility in a futile attempt to kill off the notoriously hardy bugs.

“There was this one room where we just couldn’t get rid of the bugs,” Judt said.

Finally, workers uncovered nests of bedbugs after Judt ordered baseboards pulled out and the furniture taken apart. “The bugs were living inside the wood,” she said.

Osborne House and the government housing agency could have saved themselves 11 of the 12 pest trips if they’d tackled the infestation right the first time, Judt said.

A senior official with Manitoba Housing admits maintenance could be better.

“Yes, the facility is old and yes, it’s probably time for some upgrades to the facility,” said Gord Thomas, executive director with asset management at Manitoba Housing.

That said, the situation isn’t as bad as Judt makes it out to be, Thomas insisted. “It’s easy to say ‘poor maintenance’, but our people have been in there.”

The province’s health inspectors informed Manitoba Housing of the latest problems at Osborne House, and the department has promised the repairs.

“If they have mould, we’ll look after it.” Thomas said.

“I saw pictures of it this morning and it did appear there was blackness where the Arborite had peeled off. We’ll deal with it,” Thomas said.

Housing officials are to meet next week with Osborne House staff to discuss options, to either clean the mould out with chemicals or replace the counter with something new.

“Hopefully we can work with them to fix the place up so they can operate their program,” Thomas said.

 

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca