Spence neighbourhood residents want city to turn unsightly Furby Street lots into affordable infill housing

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This article was published 10/10/2025 (251 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A group of Spence neighbourhood residents are asking for the city to take control of eight long-vacant lots in the inner city, saying they would better serve the community if they were converted into affordable housing.

“They are depressing. It makes it look like your neighbourhood is dying,” said Cheryl Martens, one of about a dozen residents behind a letter sent to local politicians at every level of government Thursday.

The letter suggests the stretch of homes, all located on or near the 500 block of Furby Street, would be suitable candidates for infill housing development.

Many of the properties have been vacant since late 2018, owing to a rash of fires on the street. For years, neighbours have wondered when the empty lots would be replaced with homes. Instead, they are treated as pedestrian thoroughfares, attracting garbage and, sometimes, homeless encampments, Martens said.

“We are just waiting all the time, it seems, for somebody to do something,” she said.

“We don’t think we’re River Heights, but we would like to have nice, livable houses, duplexes — places where people who don’t have a lot of money can come and live their life.”

The Spence residents are proposing the City of Winnipeg review the land titles of the properties and, if necessary, expropriate them from private owners. It could then use housing funding pledged by senior levels of government to build new and affordable multi-unit homes, Martens said.

She suggested those homes be sold back to community members at low cost, encouraging them to take on affordable mortgages and become long-term residents.

“The city covers the cost of the build, but then people pay it back,” Martens said. “It’s just a practical solution. Then, you can have families and people can come and feel an investment in the neighbourhood.”

The idea has the support of the Spence Neighbourhood Association, which found some success with a similar strategy in the past, when it purchased 20 to 30 lots and converted them into homes before selling them back to families at cost, executive director Michele Wikkerink said.

“Empty lots are a huge issue in our neighbourhood. We’re an old neighbourhood and the housing stock is old, so if they become vacant, they often end up burning,” Wikkerink said.

“(The lots) are not attractive, they get messy, they are often uncared for and we would love to see all kinds of housing fill those empty spaces.”

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Wikkerink said Spence would like to be a “pilot neighbourhood” for any future infill housing projects. She said the community is among the most diverse and walkable in all of Winnipeg.

Mayor Scott Gillingham, who was among the politicians who received the Spence residents’ letter, said he had not had a chance to review it Friday but was open to the idea.

“I do appreciate the residents bringing that forward. We are really focused, and have been for over a year now, on identifying sites that could be turned into housing,” he said at an unrelated news conference.

“If there are sites that have been identified, we will certainly look at that and talk about that.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.