Accessible housing hard to find for Grande Prairie residents displaced by apartment fire
June fire at Margaret Edgson Manor left dozens of residents without home
Leslie Dunagan and her husband, Kevin Guerrette, are struggling to find a new home in Grande Prairie, Alta.
They are among dozens of people displaced from Margaret Edgson Manor, which caught fire over a month ago. The 70-unit apartment building, which provided affordable housing and 16 wheelchair-accessible units, is now uninhabitable.
Many affected residents are staying in hotels or college dormitories while they look for new rentals. Some, including Dunagan and Guerrette, have to consider their mobility issues and complex health needs as they search. Dunagan has multiple sclerosis and uses a walker; Guerrette is her full-time caretaker.
But finding any vacancy is the bigger issue, they said.
"You can phone any rental agency in Grande Prairie right now, and they have zero vacancies. Most of them do not even have waitlists anymore because it's that bad," said Dunagan, who lived in the manor with her husband for five years.
"It's not even trying to find something accessible, which I need. There are just no vacancies, period."
Dunagan and Guerrette have applied for more than 15 rentals, but have had no luck so far, they said. The couple is living in a hotel for now. Their insurance company will cover costs for nine months.
The fire has highlighted the ongoing challenge of ensuring accessible housing is available when needed, especially in emergencies, a City of Grande Prairie spokesperson told CBC News in an emailed statement.
The city doesn't have many vacant, fully accessible units on standby, the spokesperson said. So when an emergency displaces a lot of residents, it further strains an already stretched system.
Grande Prairie, a city about 390 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, had a residential vacancy rate of 1.5 per cent in 2023, provincial data shows. The dataset only tracks units in non-subsidized buildings.
The city approved to help cover hotel accommodations for manor residents as they waited for insurance or provincial emergency benefits to begin, the spokesperson said.
Several residents were successfully placed in a city-owned housing facility, the spokesperson said. But the municipality is not directly managing individual placements. Instead, it's supporting local organizations that are working with impacted residents.
The provincial Assisted Living and Social Services Ministry is working with the Grande Spirit Foundation — which manages the manor — and Grande Prairie Residential Society to help residents, according to Amber Edgerton, press secretary for Assisted Living and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon.
The ministry is sending rental and emergency financial assistance to those affected, and has contacted affordable housing and seniors' lodges in the Grande Prairie area to help people find suitable housing, Edgerton said in a statement.
Sixty-seven of the manor's units were occupied when the fire ignited on June 9, said Tracy Bussiere, the Grande Spirit Foundation's director of human resources, in an email.
She wouldn't specify how many people lived in the building, but said 82 per cent of residents have been rehoused to a lodge, apartment or rent-subsidized unit.
The status of 13 per cent of residents is unknown, while five per cent have refused options, she said.
Dunagan and Guerrette haven't heard much from support organizations, they said. The foundation has offered them spaces in different communities, including at a seniors' lodge about 70 kilometres north in Spirit River, Alta., but moving away is a last resort.
"Grande Prairie has become a home for me. My doctors are here … My friends are here," Dunagan said.
She hasn't considered living elsewhere since the couple moved to Grande Prairie from Vancouver Island in 2006, Dunagan said. She is only doing so now "because there's nothing here."
"How are we supposed to deal with this? How are we supposed to find a new home when there are none?" Dunagan said.
Julie Wright, another displaced resident who lived in the manor for seven years, admits that she and her family are lucky to be settling into a new apartment.
Wright, who has degenerative disc disease and arthritis, is recovering from surgery. But she also cares for her adult daughter, who is disabled and has multiple complex health conditions.
When she went to a local property management company, it happened to have a new listing, she said.
"It had all of the ticks for us to be able to live there," Wright said, noting that the location was good, despite being half the size of her first-floor manor unit.
"I immediately took it," she said. "There were no ifs, ands or buts about it, because there's nothing in this town."
They're living on a fixed income, though, Wright said, and their new rent costs $1,650 per month — more than double the $800 they paid monthly at the manor.
"That's going to make a big difference," she said.
Starting over
In addition to losing their homes, many of the manor's residents escaped the fire with few belongings.
Wright, for one, left medications, Kitchen-Aid mixers and the ashes of her daughter's father, she said.
"There were two days, I called it my pity party; I broke down," Wright said.
"They're just some things that you can't replace, but we'll survive. [We'll] have to do without," she said.
Dunagan and Guerrette, meanwhile, are starting over without Dunagan's custom wheelchair, as well as keepsakes of their son, who died 13 years ago. They also initially lost thousands of dollars of medication, which they have since been able to replace.
"We've lost all the pictures of him," Dunagan said. "We had a memory quilt made out of his clothes; we've lost that."
"It's just an overwhelming sense of loss," she said.
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