Tenants say they're seeing problems after encampment resident move in

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Hi everybody, I'm Marcy Marcusa and this is Manitoba, a province where we certainly have a problem with housing.

[00:00:08]But we have had a lot of strategies, especially over the last 18 months. Now though, there's some new problems coming up with where people are being housed because they're coming off the street and going into spaces where others are already living. And mixing those two populations, for example, those living with chronic homelessness and senior citizens, is causing some problems that we're going to tackle on today's podcast. [music] [music] So, as I mentioned, we have had a lot of different strategies to try and tackle chronic homelessness, but the biggest one was announced in January of 2025.

[00:00:52]the your way home strategy. Here's what Premier Wad canu had to say at the time.

[00:00:57]>> Today is a day where we commit to a turning point. We're going to work together and ensure that everybody has a place to call home and importantly that you have the addictions and mental health services to succeed in living with a roof over your head.

[00:01:14]>> That is Wob Canoe, our premier of Manitoba, speaking launching the Your Way Home strategy in January of 2025.

[00:01:22]The thing is that roof over the heads of people who are coming out of encampments is also the roof over the heads of other people who are already living in these buildings. And that is where our podcast begins because there's some challenges with mixing the populations.

[00:01:40]People who rely on home care at one social housing building in Winnipeg's William White neighborhood that's pretty much in central uh Winnipeg to the north end. They're being asked to cross the street now to get care. That's because some of their healthcare workers don't feel safe coming into the building anymore. It's been the case since about March uh mid-March of this year, 2026.

[00:02:02]It's around the same time that tenants told CBC that people who were previously homeless started moving in under the province's your way home strategy. CBC's Josh Crab spoke to some tenants. He visited the building and he says, as I alluded to, some people also don't feel safe. and he has a special report for us.

[00:02:20]>> Marcy, it's a 12story highrise at 145 P Street right along Selkerk Avenue. So, right at the bell tower, if you've driven by that area, this is a rent geared to income building run by the nonprofit Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation. I've previously visited the building. That was more than 2 years ago. At that time, I remember seeing some graffiti inside.

[00:02:39]There was a smell of cigarette smoke.

[00:02:41]There were some signs of disrepair, but people who live there now say the conditions are far worse. I spoke with several people who walked out of the building and identified themselves as tenants. None wanted to appear on camera and they asked for confidentiality because they're concerned about gang activity in the building. They fear speaking out about what's going on there might make them a target. Residents tell me there have been stabbings in and around the building. People inside handing out crack pipes, people living in stairwells consuming drugs in hallways, and people, as one resident put it, selling their bodies. One man called what's happening there a travesty. When I was there last week, two Winnipeg police officers walked in and then walked back out with a woman in handcuffs. The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority says for the past month and a half, home care workers have not been going inside. The RHA says they're now providing care to residents at the Indigenous Family Center located directly across the street. That means people in need of care, typically provided in the home, have to leave their homes to get it. Margaret Schroeder with QP Local 204 represents 2500 homeare workers in Winnipeg. She's not aware of an arrangement like this at any other building in Winnipeg.

[00:03:52]>> Well, I understand that um it's become unsafe uh with the new clientele that they've been allowing to move into the building. There have been some concerns and uh so in order to keep the staff safe, they have changed how they're going to deliver the care.

[00:04:09]>> What a story you've uh you've brought.

[00:04:11]uh lots of detail on what you've heard from folks. How many people are affected by this change he's talking about?

[00:04:16]>> The RH says two people are currently receiving home care across the street.

[00:04:20]Now, there have also been safety concerns raised by homeare workers at another one of the Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation's buildings, which we told you about in a story last week. Homeare workers are still going to the Canadian Polish Manor on Selkerk Avenue. That's a 55 plus building where 33 people are getting home care. Homeare workers uh are now going into a side entrance at that building to avoid interactions with other people trying to follow them into the building. Now, the health region says it's confident the landlord is working to address the situation. And the RHA says once things have improved, it plans to return to providing home care services within 145 Power Street. Schroeder isn't aware of any specific incident that prompted this change. Uh she knows it's not the best solution, though. It's not ideal for the clients which is unfortunate but in order to keep the workers safe sometimes we have to make different arrangements and in this case it would be the clients are going across the street just so that our workers can remain safe.

[00:05:20]>> What's the landlord saying Josh about the problems there and the impact it's having?

[00:05:24]>> The executive director of the Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation confirmed the home care arrangement but James Hinrix had no further comment.

[00:05:31]None of what tenants say is hap or none of what tenants say is happening the building rather comes as much of a surprise to Mitch Burbanier. He's an outreach worker here in Winnipeg with OPK Manitoba, the downtown community safety partnership and he has a loved one living in a different social housing building. Uh I can only speak from my personal experience of my loved one and uh what they go through in their block.

[00:05:57]Uh is that they get people kind of milling about the building and as soon as someone who lives there is entering, they dash in uh and they occupy the stairwells, they occupy the hallways. Uh and there's been some very disturbing behaviors uh that affect everybody in those buildings. There's defecation, there's sexual activity in the stairwells, there's open drug use, um there's people banging on on people's doors. Um so it it it gets very unsettling for the folks that live in those buildings.

[00:06:36]>> What does he think of the province's your way home strategy? Then >> Bourbanier says uh it is important to find housing for people who are homeless and he supports the yourway home strategy, but he says it comes with growing pains and challenges. When new people with complex needs and backgrounds move in somewhere, he says it can make a building unsafe for other vulnerable people who already live there. Some people with addiction and mental health that are active in their addiction uh sometimes when they move in, it does attract uh some of the outsiders from the building. It uh attracts drug dealers and gang members.

[00:07:11]Uh but it also attracts uh other folks that are struggling with addiction and mental health that are living unsheltered in the community. And so it creates a friction and uh a feeling of unease and and and not having safety in the building for everyone.

[00:07:30]>> So what's being done to address the concerns you've raised?

[00:07:33]>> Good question. Uh the head of the Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation has previously said they can evict people when there are issues or incidents in their buildings. There are security guards at the entrance of the building at 145 Power Street and the front doors are locked. Uh so we took these concerns to Manitoba's Minister of Housing Addictions and Homelessness given some of the criticism of the government's homeless strategy here. Uh some housing advocates argue it's putting too much focus on housing people who are chronically homeless and they say that's affecting the safety of other vulnerable people who are precariously housed. Bernardet Smith is not disputing those concerns. The minister says people are being housed in various properties with support from social service agencies including the Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation.

[00:08:17]>> They also have um security in in their buildings as well. So that building that you're talking about 145 Powers has uh cameras in their building as well and key card access. And of course they're working towards you know making sure that um that building is uh got adequate security and supports in place. We know that there's uh from what we've heard, you know, some criminal activity that's been going on there. So, we've there's zero tolerance for that. You know, we want to send a really strong, you know, message to anyone that think thinks they're going to do, you know, whether gang activity or drug dealing or any criminal activity behavior in our buildings at all that that's there's zero tolerance for that. Um, our residents need to uh feel safe and, you know, be secure in their build in their residence in the buildings.

[00:09:09]>> It's a complicated situation in our city.

[00:09:11]>> Yeah, that's right, Marcy. And we asked Winnipeg police about it, too. They wouldn't comment on the building specifically, but officers do say the neighborhood there has challenges with personal and property crime, which they say has some drug and gang level roots.

[00:09:24]Smith acknowledges there will be growing pains with the homeless strategy as the government and social service agencies work to get people off the street and out of encampments. That's the CBC's Josh Crab who visited the buildings in question where there's some challenges with populations who live there, largely seniors and people who are coming off the street to find a first place with a roof over their head coming out of encampments. Now, I have alluded to the fact that there's multiple buildings involved and so did Josh. So, we also at CBC reported on this 55 plus building that's going through similar struggles, the Canadian Polish Manor at 300 Selkerk Avenue, and I want to lean into that because they've also had complaints about drug activity, drinking, thefts, and break-ins. And it prompted a provincial investigation. This is 69year-old Freda Campbell, who lives there, describing a recent incident at the Canadian Polish Manor.

[00:10:18]>> I heard a guy running down the hallway.

[00:10:21]He was screaming and and coughing and then that's when I went to my door and I looked out the people and then I guess I got hit by it and then I started coughing and choking and I couldn't breathe. I went to running to the bathroom. I poured water on my face and cuz I couldn't breathe. Now, some residents uh blame the provincial government's your way home strategy uh which uh has housed formerly homeless people in available apartment units. So, they're saying that those populations together are causing uh some of these challenges. Now, this strategy to mix populations is something that my next guest says is flawed. Marian Willis is the founder and executive director of St. Bonafice Street Links, which works to house people experiencing homelessness. Good morning.

[00:11:07]>> Good morning, Marcy.

[00:11:08]>> Thanks for being in studio today. Um, why flawed to mix the populations?

[00:11:13]>> Well, first of all, the the your way home strategy is not flawed, but their approach to housing probably is not the best approach. Um, we would never take a high-risk population and that is vulnerable and then house them in buildings with seniors and particularly in high-rise buildings with many floors where you really um it doesn't really matter if you have security at the doors or not. There's really no way to control the population.

[00:11:44]The other challenge is is that we all talk about this term wraparound services, but wraparound services really I I actually don't even like that term anymore. You know, what individuals need are really solid case plans developed by competent workers that have the ability to really take the time, spend a lot of time with every single person they house, set small, achievable goals, you know, really get to know your client, map out a pathway forward that addresses the addiction issues, the mental health issues, all of it. That's really lacking in this. How much are we underestimating then to follow your point um what what that means in terms of what how long the follow-up has to be or how many services have to be there to to help someone with success uh who's going to be housed and has formerly been houseless.

[00:12:34]>> I think it's been grossly underestimated and I think it's been since the beginning long before your way home.

[00:12:40]We've always used this term wraparound services, but it's actually something that's never really been funded or at least res resourced to the extent uh that it really needs to be. It's easy to house people. The real work begins once you have that person housed. Now, you have a housing uh unit that I visited last year that is people coming out of encampments as well or that have come through uh the emergency shelter in Winnipeg. Um and it is all people, so it's one homogeneous population. Yes. Um it's locked door. It has services on site there, but it is a public landlord that you partner with that that has a building.

[00:13:16]>> Um how is that working now that you've it's a fairly new project still?

[00:13:21]>> That's like a welloiled machine. You know, people come in um right out of homelessness, you know, into that space.

[00:13:28]It's two stories. It's not 17 stories.

[00:13:31]It's a two-story building.

[00:13:33]>> Um it's locked. Everybody there signs a community living agreement. So they know that when they come into when they accept housing there that this is transitional. It has supports. We have expectations. If you expect nothing, by the way, you get nothing. Um and they know that they're going to be required to work with the team to set some goals and that from um from that location, they will eventually transition into permanent housing. Is there ever any push back where it's like um I need a roof. I don't need to be quote unquote I'm going to use the term babysit and I use that gently, but I'm wondering if you get any push back. You know, this is my life and thank you for the help, but >> yeah, occasionally. I mean, it's not a perfect model. I don't think there is a perfect model, >> you know, but then maybe that person just isn't ready for what we're we have to offer right now.

[00:14:18]>> And it's an agreement you make at the beginning.

[00:14:20]>> We make an agreement at the beginning, they sign it, we sign it, and it works.

[00:14:23]>> You've mentioned a couple times 17 floors versus two, the size of the building. Why? because because you can't because we we set, you know, the community living agreements, that's a control variable. Locking the doors is a control variable. Uh ensuring that you have staff from 8:00 in the morning till 8 at night as we do at Fountain, that's a control variable. Having security from 8 at night until 8:00 in the morning and and on 24 hours through the weekend, those are control variables. And we're doing the same thing right now. We're getting set uh to do the same thing at 45 Sherbrook. We've emptied that building out. But, you know, it's really interesting at Sherbrook. There were about 60 to 65 people hanging out in the hallways, all young people, all strung out on drugs. I really didn't feel good about the fact that, yeah, we've made the building safe now for a new population. But where are all those young people who are addicted? Where did they go? Down the street to take over the next building. You know, we're not going to house our way out of uh this homeless crisis. We need to get to the root cause and we need to understand that all this big face of homelessness as diverse as it is as a face of addictions and mental health. It's at crisis levels. We need to look at >> crisis response.

[00:15:38]>> Yeah, we need that and we we need to build recovery and we need a youth gang strategy as well. Those are all really young people hanging out using fentinel in the hallways, the stairwells of Manitoba housing buildings and buildings everywhere. So we were talking about we started with a senior's population and then we you've sort of nodded to social housing maybe not also being a solution.

[00:16:00]Do you think you can ever mix populations of people who are you know coming out of homelessness into any population or is it your belief that it should be these uniform buildings with the full >> Well, I don't think that we should be mixing populations with seniors. I think seniors themselves are vulnerable people that are uh living in Manitoba housing or on fixed incomes. I think we need to be more concerned about quality of life for those folks, making sure the buildings are safe, that home care can come in, their families can visit and so on. So, no, I wouldn't be mixing uh other people with seniors. Uh I do think you can mix populations, but you need to travel people a journey, you know, through a care plan that's set some goals that you know has a bit of vision.

[00:16:40]You know where you're going. you've connected people to, you know, services beyond what you can provide yourself, you know, and maybe we even have people to the point where they're willing to consider recovery plans.

[00:16:53]>> What do we do in the meantime now? I mean, we have a couple problem more than one problem here. We also have people with the skills to be able to deal with these populations. You know, we're lacking a numbers of those people. I mean, I'm not just thinking about the housing populations and the apartments.

[00:17:05]I'm even thinking of interviews we've done in healthcare with nurses that are in emergency rooms and working with people and then they're not skilled to work with this population either and maybe people are there for shelters so especially in the winter.

[00:17:16]>> Um I I'm wondering right now um I went on a bit of a tangent there. I apologize. I'm wondering right now if we go back to the housing block short of evicting people who are causing problems because that's the way that you know housing issues are handled usually. What do you think can be done to make the current situations in these two blocks?

[00:17:33]>> Well, I think that I think that if they're 55 plus buildings, I think that whoever is place is has moved people into the building needs to work with the province to get them out of those buildings as soon as possible and into other housing. Private market housing is always going to be the best approach.

[00:17:51]private market housing. Uh maybe the province should consider providing some incentives that you know uh that bring more private market suppliers, you know, uh online. We've been doing this for 10 years. You know, we have this huge network of which is why we house so many people because we've had to do that because of Morberg House. We've had to always keep the flow. We've had to build, you know, all that housing to transition from Warberg House into where are they going to go? I have to keep bringing people in. So, we've we've built a really strong network. So, it's a little bit easier, I think, for us than maybe it is for some other groups.

[00:18:27]But, it is private market housing, small populations and small buildings, homes that have been duplexed and teams that are funded to get in there and do the work. You can't just house people and go away.

[00:18:39]>> Let us know when Sherbrook opens >> soon. Come for a visit soon. Thank you, Marian.

[00:18:44]>> Thank you.

[00:18:44]>> That's Marian Willis, the founder and executive director of St. Bonafice Street Links. Uh Manitoba's housing and addictions and homelessness minister is Bernardet Smith. Uh and she did weigh in on all this telling CBC the province continues to work with social service agencies to house homeless people in various properties including buildings owned and operated by the nonprofit Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corporation. That corporation runs the Power Street apartment block, which was uh the block that we started uh talking about at the beginning of the podcast.

[00:19:17]Well, much more to learn and figure out where this goes next. We'll have to put some of these questions to the premier the next time we have him live on uh CBC or on our podcast in the future.

[00:19:28][snorts] If you want to weigh in and you're a regular listener, uh we've done a series of stories trying to figure out how to tackle chronic homelessness in our province, please use our email. It is this is Manitoba the full word at cbc.ca.

[00:19:41]I'm Marcy Marcusa. Thanks for listening.