When Roberta Westenberg woke up Monday in her room at the Balmoral Hotel, she feared she might be spending the night on the street.
Monday was the deadline for the 57-year-old widow and more than 100 tenants of the single-room-occupancy hotel near Main and Hastings to move out. Ten days ago, the city ordered the owners to evacuate all tenants by June 12 for fear the building could collapse.
Westenberg’s worry about her housing situation turned to elation later in the morning, when she learned a worker with a women’s centre found her a room in another low-income hotel near Oppenheimer Park. It has a kitchenette, a toilet and is clean.
“I have a place today, I have a home, I have a roof over my head — it’s pretty cool,” said Westenberg, standing outside the entrance to the Balmoral. “I was really scared there for a while. I thought I was going to be homeless. I’m 57 years old. If I get down, I’m not getting up.”
She’s leaving a room in which the ceiling sagged, the walls were cracked and black mould was visible. Cockroaches, bedbugs and rodents were plenty. Drug activity, fires and violence occurred outside her door. She paid $450 a month.
Westenberg, who lives on about $1,000 per month in social assistance payments, will pay $375 a month for her new place. The recovering drug user, whose husband died recently, received a cheque Monday from the owners of the Balmoral — the Sahota family — for close to $1,600 to cover relocation costs. All tenants were supposed to get cheques Monday, the amount depending on how long a person lived in the hotel.
The scene outside the hotel Monday morning was chaotic, with dozens of tenants lined up at the main doors to receive cheques while police and security guards stood by. City officials and others, including moving company workers, were seen carrying and wheeling boxes, beds and other items out of the hotel.
A fire official was on scene, along with observers from the B.C. Civil Liberties’ Association and housing activists. The city placed a large garbage bin on the street, which was slowly being filled with anything tenants didn’t want to take with them.
Standing near the entrance, housing activist Wendy Pedersen — her voice hoarse from Sunday’s rally to support the tenants — described what was happening before her as “a miracle.” Pedersen of the SRO Collaborative and other activists worked on behalf of tenants — including holding a sit-in outside the mayor’s office — to publicize the horrible conditions of the hotel. That action led to the city ordering a structural review that concluded the building could collapse.
“I’m so proud of what we did… but I’m also scared and pissed off for all the people who are living in this city in terrible conditions who cannot speak out,” she said.
As of 12:30 p.m. Monday, the 18 tenants that Pederson counted Sunday night without a place to move had been reduced to less than 10. She was confident that B.C. Housing would find homes for the remaining tenants by nightfall.
“There might be a few stragglers, but I’m in constant contact with B.C. Housing and I think we’re going to get there, which is a miracle,” she said, noting the tenants were being relocated to homes in the neighbourhood. “The power of tenants and the tenants’ union basically forced the city and the province to pull a rabbit out of the hat.”
Pedersen acknowledged housing providers would unlikely be able to again move so many people in such a short time. There are just not enough vacant rooms,she said, adding that some of the tenants were given rent supplements to move into private hotels and may be relocated to other accommodation after a year.
That reality, she added, worries her about highlighting poor conditions at other hotels for fear the city would again have to shut down another hotel. Pedersen has repeatedly said the city should have not let the Balmoral fall into disrepair, despite the decades of violations issued to the owners.
“We can’t take another 100 people on the street, and I don’t think there’re many rabbits to pull out of hats,” she said.
On the first day the city posted the evacuation order at the hotel, the Courier noticed about half a dozen people leaving the building with an assortment of duffel bags, suitcases and garbage bags full of personal belongings. Asked whether those tenants found housing, Pedersen said she didn’t know.
“They might turn up later,” she said, noting some might have paid rent directly to a desk clerk instead of being registered through the province’s social assistance program.
The city issued a statement Sunday that said “alternate units” had been found for all “registered residents” of the Balmoral. That number totalled more than 140 tenants. The city now awaits next steps of its prosecutor to take court action against the Sahota family for 64 bylaw violations related to the hotel.
“The city recognizes the stress and strain this evacuation is putting on the tenants at the Balmoral, but the safety of the individuals in the building is our primary concern,” the statement continued. “The evacuation decision, issued by the chief building official on June 2, was based on assessment and recommendations of structural engineers and building code consultants that confirmed significant life safety risks to occupants of the building. In order to limit structural loads and minimize the number of people in the building, the chief building official issued an additional order on June 8 restricting access to tenants and authorized personnel.”
At a news conference two weeks ago, deputy city manager Paul Mochrie estimated the work to stabilize the dilapidated hotel would cost several million dollars. More repairs would then be needed to fix up rooms and the hotel’s electrical and plumbing systems.
The city expects the Sahotas to immediately get to work on the repairs, otherwise the city will hire a contractor to do the work and bill the owners. The Sahotas have been reluctant to speak to the Courier and other media about the conditions of the Balmoral.
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