Province extends aid to displaced Birchwood Terrace residents

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This article was published 31/05/2024 (513 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province is providing housing and meals to the displaced residents of a St. James apartment complex, taking over where the city and Red Cross are leaving off.

About 250 people were forced to leave Birchwood Terrace at 2440 Portage Ave. with about 12 hours notice on May 9 after the city issued an evacuation order citing structural support issues and the risk of a collapse.

Some of the evacuees have been provided accommodations at hotels and food stipends through the city and the Canadian Red Cross while they find new homes, but those supports were set to expire Friday.

Kirkfield Park MLA Logan Oxenham said Thursday the province will step in to cover those costs.

“Let me be clear — no one from Birchwood Terrace will end up on the streets on June 1. Our government will ensure that there is no interruption of service,” he said in the legislative chamber. “We will be there to support folks through this weekend and beyond.”

Hotel stays are being extended for the next two weeks and the province will “be re-assessing on a regular basis” and provide further support where needed after that, an NDP spokesman said Friday.

Judith Stanley, her partner and their dogs were among the residents forced out of her apartment for the past decade. They’re staying at a Best Western while looking for another home.

She said they were told by hotel staff Thursday night that their stay had been extended only until next Friday, and a prepaid credit card provided by the Red Cross with a daily food stipend has been reloaded up until Tuesday.

Stanley said she’s grateful for the help, but apartment-hunting has been difficult and she fears they won’t find a place to stay in the next seven days.

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“We’re still looking for an apartment. We can’t find one. People aren’t messaging back,” she said. “And then, if we do go to see them, they’ve got tenants lined up. To sublease apartments, they’ve got people lined up 20 deep, and there’s nothing unusual in that.”

Most apartment complexes welcome new tenants on the first of the month and don’t have flexible move-in dates, Stanley said, adding most rents are much higher than what they were paying at Birchwood.

“If we do get an apartment and, say, it’s for July 1, which is a reasonable time, where are we going to go for three weeks? she said.

”I know this is unprecedented, but it’s got to have a little bit of leeway. Give us a bit of breathing room.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak 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.