City's threat of legal action leads to SRO hotel repairs in Downtown Eastside

City hall has cracked the whip on the owners of three Vancouver single-room-occupancy hotels by ordering them to repair their buildings under threat of court action.

Chief license inspector Barb Windsor told the Straight that it’s the first time city hall has used this option in enforcing the Standards of Maintenance By-law.

In separate orders, the Balmoral Hotel (159 East Hastings Street), Lucky Lodge (134 and 136 Powell Street), and Keefer Rooms (222 Keefer Street) have been instructed to fix problems plaguing their businesses.

The owners of Balmoral Hotel and Lucky Lodge—the Sahota and Laudisio families—were the subjects of a complaint filed in January by various Downtown Eastside-based organizations before the Residential Tenancy Branch for allegedly failing to maintain living standards in their hotels.

The orders issued by city hall carried a warning that if they fail to comply, the matter will be brought before city council to initiate legal action.

“It means us preparing an order, and going forward to the courts and asking the courts to give us a court order which would ultimately order the people to do the work,” Windsor explained.

It looks like the tactic is working.

As of Monday (June 8), according to Windsor, repair work was proceeding at the Balmoral Hotel. A previous inspection showed, among other concerns, that its interior walls were not being maintained in a clean and sanitary condition. Windsor also noted that a licensed elevator company has to be contracted by the hotel to fix the lift that has been out of order since February 2009.

City inspectors have yet to pay the Keefer Rooms a new visit to see if it has completed work like providing “fire rated doors”, and the repair of the bathing unit on the second floor of the building.

Lucky Lodge has submitted an application for a permit to put in the required number of bathing units in the building, as well as running cold and hot water in all the hand basins in the hotel. According to Windsor, an inspection is scheduled today (June 9).

Windsor also said that staff is preparing a report that will go to council in early July about the three SRO hotels.

Acting on the instructions of council, staff reported in March that increased enforcement of the Standards of Maintenance By-law can be done through either the court injunction or resolution process.

Council decided to go to the injunction route. “So we then said to them. ”˜Fine. So start using them. Give us some test cases,’” Vision Vancouver councillor Tim Stevenson told the Straight.

Comments

3 Comments

editor@2010homelesschampions.ca

Jun 9, 2009 at 5:03pm

THE FACT the city feels compelled to force these sro's slash dump's to do anything is a real mystry to me they should have been condemmed as unliveable years ago.Can you say deplorable health conditions, the health department should be called the centre for disease control, the building codes inspector where should i stop.Just because the occupant's are addicts alcoholic's or suffer from mental challenges is no excuse, If you build a new home or building of any kind the inspectors are like freaking nazi's so why the blind eye on these coffins go figure

Henny-B

Jun 10, 2009 at 3:35pm

"Never let the facts get in the way of the truth"
It means it is impossible to 'live' in a 100-200 sq.ft place.
It's a roof over your head, but no matter how organized you can normally be, your 'home' is bound to be cluttered & you can be sure to be homeless in the face of that again.
I'm being threatened with eviction for trying to live with proper regard to friend' needs (those who don't have a place to call home but the streets), offering them a place to sometimes sleep and store some of their belongings.
I wish I could lead a decent life and maintain just a bit of memory and in 200 square feet,
it is simply impossible.
I'm not 'housed', just being temporarily 'warehoused'.
Why don't you politicians and judges try this yourselves sometime, you would be wiser or lose it all.
Still with it?
I'm living it!

HB

Brent Gibson

Jun 11, 2009 at 3:16pm

Like henny-B I live in a 200 sq ft room - washroom down the hall - it is far more vital to me that the bldg management take responsiblity for cleaning thea common areas and washrooms than it is necessary to increase space - i am fortunate in living in one of the cleanest bldg in the DE - wouldn't trade that for double the space. I willingly give up aspects of civil liberties (limit on guests, etc) in return for the knowledge that the building is not peopled by totally dope-simple neighbours - note I am making a distinction between addicts (I count myself as one) and the ridiculously dope simple (been there, done that - over it). I cannot fathom why it has taken so long through so many civic administrations to begin these actions - I can only be glad that at long last there is a beginning of action - The Balmoral has been as it is for eons, the pressure must be maintained.
BG