Addictions centre clients ordered out of Winnipeg condo complex

More than a dozen clients of a private addictions treatment centre have been ordered to move out of a condo complex in Winnipeg's Linden Woods neighbourhood.

Tenants of the Aurora Reunification Village must leave their homes at the 873 Waverley St. condominium complex by Dec. 31, according to a letter issued by lawyers representing the Linden Woods Condominium board on Friday — a week after a Manitoba Court of King's Bench judge ruled in favour of a cease and desist to all of the centre's operations in the premises.

Twenty-three units in the complex's west building are owned by the operator of the Aurora Recovery Centre, a private addiction centre.

The Aurora Reunification Village supports clients recovering from addiction while allowing them to reconnect to their families. The centre opened in June.

The board had argued the units were being used for business purposes, which would be against condominium rules preventing owners from using them as anything but private single-family residences.

The village "is not simply housing where the tenants pay rent to a landlord and live in the apartments as their family home," Justice Shauna McCarthy wrote in the decision.

"Regardless of how ARC's business model works specifically, it is clear to me that offering accommodation to graduates of the treatment program, plus a variety of supportive services, is part of the business model."

ARC owner Michael Bruneau said the board's actions boil down to discrimination.

"My members don't want to be there because they can tell … [they] don't want them there," he said.

"It's Christmas time. Some of these children are in school, some of these people have no place to go — and they want them out."

Clients felt unwelcome

Jessica Dos Santos, the facilities manager at the reunification village, said clients have felt unwelcome in the neighbourhood.

She said people have at times followed or took pictures of them, and that there's been times staff have also been confronted. Dos Santos said it's all based on stigma toward people with substance use disorders.

"There's been no violence. There's been no … loud activities. There's been no interference with the community whatsoever," she said.

"Everyone there is sober, and sober [for] more than 30 days. They're trying to get their kids back. The last thing they want to do is go back to their communities and potentially relapse."

Dos Santos said the village currently has 20 tenants, six of whom are children.

Ruling may cause 'significant hardship': Judge

The court decision said Bruneau had told the real estate agent for a couple that purchased the remaining unit in the west building that they "wouldn't like it there" and things would be "loud and chaotic."

McCarthy said that, while original plans were altered to remove an office and a child-minding services, that wasn't enough to change the village's commercial nature.

"I'm very mindful of the fact that this decision has the potential to render significant hardship on individual participants in the program." the judge wrote, adding that the board should take into consideration that the tenants are not the ones in breach of the rules, and that they should give them a "reasonable opportunity" to make alternate arrangements.

CBC News has reached out to the law firm representing the board.

"There was some members of the community that were really acceptant of us," Dos Santos said. "To have this ruling and then to have the condo board tell us that we need to be out by Dec. 31, just shows you where the problem is."

Bruneau said the centre was already looking to move to a different location before the decision, but that now they were "going to fight."

Dos Santos said some clients are planning a protest so people are aware the decision "doesn't have anything to do with the business being run out of 873 Waverley and it has everything to do with substance-use disorders."