By Spencer Sterritt

to be whole

Residents of Fifth St. affordable housing complex rally for better care and repairs

Jun 15, 2020 | 5:30 AM

NANAIMO — Stepping into a unit in the townhouse complex known as Sanala is like stepping into a horror movie.

In one unit, flakes of paint fall from the bathroom ceiling in large chunks. In another, families can hear cockroaches skittering around in the night. When it rains heavily, one man said he has to set out more than 10 buckets to catch all the water coming through the roof.

Kari White, who lives in unit five of the Fifth St. and Georgia Ave. property, said she and her family has to check every appliance for cockroaches when they cook.

“I clean on a daily basis,” she told NanaimoNewsNOW during a tour of the properties on Friday, June 12. “I’ve purchased hundreds of dollars in Tupperware and air-tight containers to combat the pests. I have lost an indetermined amount of food that got ruined by cockroaches.”

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White complained of a lack of repairs at the affordable housing property which let problems escalate and the building fall apart.

“I have a right to a safe, healthy and happy home. My children have a right to a safe, healthy and happy home,” she said.

The property at the corner of Fifth St. and Georgia Ave. was previously called King Arthur Court and was known as notorious blight on the Harewood community.

In 2017, it was purchased by BC Housing under the affordable housing program, which means housing is provided but supports are not in place to assist tenants. It was renamed from King Arthur Court to Sanala, which means “to be whole.”

The property is operated by the Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre, who have two staff dedicated to housing issues at this site and another recently constructed building on Bowen Rd.

A flurry of renovation work was done in 2017 to bring the beleaguered property up to code. Many residents NanaimoNewsNOW spoke to on the tour of the complex said it seems the property was forgotten since 2018.

Cathy Fletcher in unit one first moved in before the property was bought by BC Housing.

She said it was an abysmal place to live then, with cockroaches and falling apart ceilings. She’d been hopeful the property being operated by the Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre would lead to change.

“Everything was done up good. After a little while, everything started going down.”

Chris Beaton, executive director of the Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre, said 32 of 36 maintenance request forms submitted since July 2019 were completed.

“Those units are nearly 60 years old and were beat up for several decades,” he said. “We received renovation money from BC Housing and you saw lots of improvements happen at that time. What you’re seeing is the deterioration of a 60-year-old building continue.”

Beaton has long acknowledged to NanaimoNewsNOW the housing offered at Sanala isn’t sufficient and the entire complex needs to be torn down and rebuilt.

He admitted the project has fallen behind.

“We took over the property over three years with the key objective of having redevelopment on the property and all those units completely replaced with brand new units. We’re just not there yet.”

The Nanaimo Aboriginal Centre is not directly involved in plans to rebuild the complex. The project is handled by BC Housing, the City of Nanaimo and the Nanaimo-Ladysmith School District.

An agreement between the three organizations was signed in late 2018 to explore opportunities about redeveloping the Sanala complex, as well as the large field adjacent to it and the former Harewood School on the other side of the field.

Priorities for the site include affordable rental housing, educational programming, recreational space and community services.

The timeline for the project initially included consultants being hired by November, 2018 and the plan endorsed by September, 2019.

The agreement was expanded in December, 2019 when Snuneymuxw First Nation came aboard the project.

The new timeline from BC Housing includes a land feasibility starting this summer, design underway in summer 2021 and construction beginning in mid-2023 to 2024.

A statement from BC Housing claimed they weren’t aware of the issues at the Sanala complex until a tour in March, 2020.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit