PCs call for more accessible public housing, NDP calls NLHC a 'slum landlord' in wake of Livingstone fire
Six homes were destroyed by a fire in late March
Members of Newfoundland and Labrador's opposition parties say the province's housing corporation needs to do better after a fire destroyed six public housing units in St. John's last month.
On March 27, a fire burned through a row of six Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation (NLHC) — a provincial Crown corporation — units on Livingstone Street in downtown St. John's. One person was displaced and has been transferred elsewhere. The five other units were vacant.
NLHC announced it will demolish the units "in the interest of public safety," according to interim Housing Minister Sarah Stoodley.
"Those properties were not salvageable in terms of repair," Stoodley said in a recent interview with CBC Radio's The St. John's Morning Show.
"From a public safety perspective, we thought it was important to demolish them as soon as possible."
Since the units went up in flames, Stoodley says they've been subject to vandalism and break-ins.
A metal fence now guards those six houses.
Stoodley says NLHC currently has a vacancy rate of four per cent. She says most vacancies in public housing are because of renovations that need to take place before a new tenant can move in, and the NLHC does not yet have a plan for what will happen to the soon-to-be empty lot on Livingstone Street.
Further, Stoodley says the the area is on a steep hill, and isn't "conducive to accessible units."
Progressive Conservative housing critic Jodey Wall begs to differ.
"I'm sure we have the ability to put in accessible housing in any area," he said. "[There's] a staggering number with respect to people waiting for housing."
'A state of disrepair'
NDP Leader Jim Dinn wrote a letter to Stoodley.
"The provincial government and NLHC seem to have written off the Tessier Park, Livingstone, centre city area neighbourhood, and the people who call the area home feel abandoned," Dinn wrote.
He says the housing units in that area of St. John's have been "left in a state of disrepair," and wants a commitment from the government that the units will be repaired soon.
"I want something within the next year," he said. "I also would like to see every other unit there brought up to standard."
The cause of the fire is still unknown, but Dinn says he heard from nearby residents that unhoused people were staying in the vacant units to keep warm.
"They knew that there was eventually going to be a fire here," said Dinn. "People were, I guess, squatting in the place because they had nowhere else to go."
Walking through the downtown neighbourhood, Dinn says he's observed siding peeling off houses, smashed windows and exposed insulation. He says it's a sign of NLHC's neglect.
"The NLHC has started to look like a slum landlord," Dinn wrote in his letter to Stoodley.
He included an eight-point list of recommendations, including hiring staff to maintain public housing units, providing security to ensure fires don't break out in vacant units and to commit to a space for a community centre in the neighbourhood.
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With files from The St. John's Morning Show