Proposal to turn care-home pods into housing rejected; but interest piles up By: Carol Sanders Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Apr. 21, 2023

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The Manitoba government has rejected a low-cost proposal, put forward by five Winnipeg business owners, to help move 105 unwanted visitation pods from personal care homes and turn them into free housing.

“It’s just a bunch of guys trying to do a good thing,” Métis businessman and philanthropist Kim Sigurdson said Friday.

The province put out a call earlier this year for expressions of interest to take the retrofitted shipping containers, which haven’t been used by the nursing homes since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bidders had three options: have the pods donated to a group or organization or buy the pod outright in a kind of auction. A third option, to dispose the pods, was scrapped. All options required the bidder to pay for the temporary shelters to be moved.

The plan to create care home visitation shelters from shipping containers was announced by the Progressive Conservative government in September 2020, months before a COVID-19 vaccine became publicly available. On the day the government announced the pods at PCL Constructors Ltd., 10 Manitoba personal care homes had banned visitors because of a positive COVID-19 test at their facility.

The pods, which ended up costing taxpayers $25.8 million, haven’t been used in a year and take up space on the grounds of care homes.

Raymond Dueck said his and Sigurdson’s group submitted a $1.97-million bid to decommission them, restore care home grounds where they sit, re-purpose the pods into a livable space and move them to where they’re needed for housing.

Manitoba Health then issued a request for proposals for a construction manager with technical credentials to oversee the decommissioning of the visitation pods. The province expected it would cost $5 million.

“We bid on all the costs of removing the pods and all their restoration and decommissioning… Now we’re in a quandary because there’s no way I qualify as a (top-certified) construction manager.”–Raymond Dueck

That stunned the five Winnipeg business owners, whose expertise includes construction, landscaping, renovation, and manufacturing.

“We bid on all the costs of removing the pods and all their restoration and decommissioning,” said Dueck, an inventor and retired contractor.

“Now we’re in a quandary because there’s no way I qualify as a (top-certified) construction manager,” Dueck said. “Who’s qualified to bid on this? Not me.”

Government Services Minister James Teitsma said he’s been in touch with Dueck’s group and respects their proposal.

“I want the kind of solutions they’re bringing forward to be part of the final decision,” he said Friday.

His department has received close to 50 inquiries from people interested in the visitation pods, and several have expressed interest in receiving all 105 of the units for purposes similar to Dueck’s group.

There was so much interest, the deadline was delayed until the end of March.

“The idea of using them for housing is very appealing,” said Teitsma, who was appointed to cabinet Jan. 31. “It would be such a win for our province but, at same time, it’s not without complexity,” he said. “There’s building codes that need to be followed and sites that need to be found to put them on,” he said.

“We need credible proponents who have a plan who are going to be able to do that work,” he said.

His department hasn’t yet decided who will receive the 105 visitation shelters, he said Friday.

The request for proposals to decommission them is being overseen by Manitoba Health and requires technical experience and expertise, Teitsma said.

“Someone has to come and remove all the external pieces, the connecting walkways, and remove electrical hookups — do all that properly and make sure the personal care home is exactly back the way it was before the visitation shelter was attached,” the minister said. “That work is more technical, so I’m not surprised that there’s a number of technical qualifications required for that work.”

The RFP said it’s “critical” all pods be removed from care home sites by the end of September.

Dueck’s group said it’s giving up and won’t submit a proposal, but hopes the units are used to address Manitoba’s affordable housing crisis.

“They’re beautiful units for people to live in,” Sigurdson said.

“These units would make wonderful add-ons to overcrowded houses at First Nations where they’ve got 20 people living in a house,” said Dueck.

Premier Heather Stefanson said she looks forward to seeing the proposals.

“I think that there’s lots of opportunities for dealing with our homelessness situation. You know, there’s many different possibilities out there,” she said when asked about the unused shelters.

“I wouldn’t want to pick one over the other. I want to see what those proposals are.”

— With file from Danielle Da Silva

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

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