Evacuees in Winnipeg wait for hotel rooms just as rooms sit empty

Micheline Houle has been waiting patiently for a hotel room in Winnipeg since leaving the fire-threatened northern community of Garden Hill on Friday.

“People just keep telling me to wait my turn,” she said outside the soccer complex on Leila Avenue that’s operating as an evacuation centre.

However, at the Four Crowns Inn on McPhillips Street, which is less than four kilometres away, more than 10 rooms reserved for evacuees sit empty.

While more than 1,000 Manitoba evacuees wait in crowded shelters to be taken to a hotel to wait out evacuation orders, hotels across the province have room to spare.

Andrew Pomierny, general manager at the Four Crowns, said he reserved about 12 rooms after the provincial government declared a state of emergency for the second time this year owing to wildfires.

He said as of this weekend, he hadn’t received a request for rooms from the provincial government, and no evacuees are staying at the hotel.

“We are ready to work with anyone that needs help and needs accommodations. We just want to help the efforts,” Pomierny said.

Red Cross spokesperson Heather Hogan said more than 2,100 rooms have been secured for wildfire evacuees, but hotel space is being prioritized for people who have unique needs and may require additional support.

“Hotel rooms will be provided for other evacuees as space becomes available,” Horgan said in an emailed statement.

As of Monday, 12,000 people had been evacuated. More than 6,000 were staying in hotels in Manitoba and 1,300 were put up in Ontario hotels. About 1,100 are staying in congregate shelters.

Houle says while everyone at the Leila shelter is helpful, the conditions are less than ideal.

“The floor is more comfortable than the cots, so I just sleep on there,” Houle said.

For two days she’s been trying to get a ride to a hotel on Pembina Highway where she has family staying, but no one is around to shuttle her or her husband.

“I don’t want to be here, no one does.”

Marie McGuirk, general manager of Sleep Suite 22 motel in Steinbach, received a phone call from the province a few days ago asking her to reserve rooms for incoming evacuees, but not a soul has turned up to occupy the four rooms available.

During the first wave of evacuations in late May, her motel was more than half-full with fire refugees.

“We’re kind of playing it by ear to see if anyone comes by,” McGuirk said Wednesday.

The hotelier said she would happily set aside more rooms, but as people make reservations, she can’t afford to leave them empty.

“We already have reservations so we want to keep them unoccupied, for now.”

Horgan said the Red Cross is working with the province, Indigenous leaders and community partners to “identify and secure emergency accommodations for people impacted by fires in Manitoba.”

The Red Cross is currently aiding nine communities that have been forced to evacuate owing to wildfires and two more which had to re-evacuate select members for health-related reasons, Horgan said.

Pomierny says even if the rooms go unused, he’s willing to hold them as long as necessary.

“If you’re gonna look from a strictly business point of view probably it would be better to just rent the rooms… even if we’re gonna lose some business because of that I think that this is just a part we should play in this situation,” he said.

“I strongly believe that all of us should be able to accommodate people and together we can help a lot of people.”

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca