Housing advocate calls for rental housing inspections after Alberton evacuation
P.E.I. housing advocates and politicians are raising concerns after part of an apartment building in Alberton was deemed unsafe this week and around two dozen tenants forced out of their homes.
Images of the building are tough to look at, says housing advocate Ryan MacRae of the Cooper Institute.
The main two-storey section of the former hotel is now taped off and all 13 units are empty. The province has deemed the exterior stairwell leading to the top floor unsafe.
Tenants shouldn't have to complain to the province before problems like this are addressed, MacRae said.
With the vacancy rate on P.E.I. so low, he said, "people are really nervous because they know this might be their only opportunity for housing, you know, and if they don't just kind of put their head down and go through it, they might be unhoused. So that's a difficult situation."
If tenants have concerns that aren't being addressed, the only way things will improve is with a formal report, since no routine or random inspections of apartment buildings is done here, MacRae said.
"Especially in big cities in Canada, we often see large multi-unit complexes requiring proactive inspections taking place on sometimes, you know, an annual basis or every few months. So that would be nice to see regulations like that here," he said.
The one time inspections are required on P.E.I. is when temporary foreign workers are brought in, specifically to work on farms. Where workers live needs to be inspected ahead of time, but for other foreign working streams, there is no inspection requirement.
In the legislature Friday, opposition MLAs pushed for broader protections for all tenants on the Island.
"Nobody should become unhoused because property owners are refusing to do the basic maintenance and upkeep," said Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly.
"Property owners allowed their building to fall into a state of complete dereliction," he said of the Alberton case. "Frozen pipes, broken staircases and many other unsafe components that make living there a complete safety hazard."
The building is owned by 102675 P.E.I. Inc. In an emailed statement to CBC on Wednesday, staff with the company said they are now working to do all necessary repairs as fast as possible.
"I understand there's a lot of substandard housing across this province, in this city, in my district. And we'll do everything we can to hold people to a standard that respects the safety and security of tenants," Housing, Land and Communities Minister Rob Lantz told the legislature.
"In this case, it's a lesson that we expect certain standards for all tenants in Prince Edward Island."
Call centre employees
Twelve of the tenants who had to leave the building in Alberton work at the IO Solutions Call Centre in the area. Staff with the company told CBC News that the workers are in Canada on work permits, though they weren't hired through the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
The company has helped line up new housing for them for at least the next couple of months.
Lantz said officials from his department are trying to find accommodations for the other people who had to leave their units.
