The 93-unit St. Helen’s Hotel at 1161 Granville St, which is home to some of the city’s most vulnerable citizens, had only three outstanding orders from October 2020 related to the fire bylaw before inspectors visited the six-storey building near Davie Street in June.
Of the 80 violations found in June, 46 were considered “life safety issues” mostly consisting of missing or defective smoke alarms and automatic door closers. Fire escape obstructions were also identified.
The other 34 violations related to electrical fixtures, outlets, doors, windows and plumbing fixtures in disrepair, along with holes in walls and ceilings and pest control issues, according to details on the city’s rental property standards database and information supplied to Glacier Media via email from Saul Schwebs, the city’s acting chief building official
“City inspectors will be returning to the building later this month to confirm issues identified in the annual inspection have been addressed,” Schwebs said. “Should these issues not be addressed, the city may issue further enforcement letters and/or refer the matter to the city prosecutor where charges may be laid.”
In November 2020, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services levied a total of $2,000 in fines against the building’s owner for “failure to maintain adequate egress and missing/damaged fire exit signs” before the issues were addressed later the same month.
A property record search indicates the building is owned by the Provincial Rental Housing Corporation, which is the holding company for B.C. Housing, the housing arm of the B.C. government.
COVID-19
In a statement emailed to Glacier Media Friday, the housing agency said it continues to review and address any building-related concerns, noting the hotel was built in 1910 and requires frequent maintenance.
“Some concerns can be addressed immediately, for example, if someone leaves an item on a fire escape,” the agency said.
“Other concerns require more work to address, such as damage or wear-and-tear to units. Some common challenges are access to units, especially with challenges related to COVID-19, the frequency of repairs, given the age of the building, and when the city comes to inspect.”
B.C. Housing said the pandemic has impacted building maintenance and repair at its properties across the province, including at the St. Helen’s Hotel.
The agency noted entering suites to check for concerns or to make repairs “needed to be balanced with ensuring residents were able to safely isolate to stop the spread of the virus and the priority was placed on stopping the spread of the virus.”
“Now, as more British Columbians receive the COVID-19 vaccine, we can resume normal maintenance and repair efforts at St. Helen’s and elsewhere,” B.C. Housing said.
Atira Property Management
The hotel, which houses many people living with a mental illness, addiction, or both, and who would otherwise be living on the street, is managed by Atira Property Management, whose director of supportive housing is Jose Velazquez.
In an interview Friday, Velazquez said the violations related to automatic door closers — which he and Schwebs said are crucial in preventing the spread of a fire from room to room — have recently been resolved.
But Velazquez said the door closers are often broken or dismantled by tenants for various reasons, and that it is an ongoing challenge for staff to keep the devices operating throughout the hotel.
“Unfortunately, they break them or they disable them, or they do different things to them in order for them not to work,” he said. “The reasons for this are many. It could be related to mental health, it could be as simple as wanting more airflow in their rooms. We fix them, and then they get broken again.”
Smoke alarms also get disabled because some tenants smoke in their rooms, which is common in the city’s single-room-occupancy hotels and a reality that Velazquez said is challenging to monitor and control.
Atira was recently provided with a quote of $15,000 from a fire prevention company to upgrade the building’s fire detection system, said Velazquez, noting it took some time to get approval from B.C. Housing.
But when Atira got the green light to have the system upgraded, the company hired to do the work said it is still waiting on all the necessary parts to complete the job. In the meantime, staff are on what Velazquez described as “fire watch.”
That means staff have to do rounds of the building every half hour. After 10:30 p.m., the rounds are done every 15 minutes, said Velazquez, noting some of the tenants are binners and bring their dumpster findings to the hotel.
The goods a tenant, or binner, doesn’t want are often left outside their rooms, which create obstructions for people. Janitorial staff will clean up the building during the day but garbage then piles up again after they leave at 4:30 p.m., he said.
“In the morning, when the [janitors] come, the hallways and the staircase is full of trash,” he said, which was a concern raised by tenant Liam Evans, who has lived in the hotel for more than a year.
'2.3 stars'
Standing outside the hotel Thursday, Evans said staff do their best to keep the place clean but that garbage is a reality and an obstacle for people, some of whom include tenants who have trouble walking.
“But I don’t think this building is going to burn down anytime soon,” he said. “I think it’s a pretty OK place to live. I give it 2.3 stars.”
The building isn’t without support services to address the needs of tenants, with The Foundry (formerly InnerCity Youth Mental Health) and Coast Mental Health with staff on site.
Police calls to the hotel between 2017 and 2020 indicate mental health was either the number one reason or in the top five reasons for the response. "Assist mental health" calls generated by police during that period totalled 300.
Such a call could involve police bringing someone to the hospital to be seen by a doctor, or someone in mental health distress but doesn’t fit the criteria under the Mental Health Act to go to hospital, said Const. Tania Visintin, a VPD media relations officer.
Missing person reports, which hotel staff trigger as a precaution when a tenant hasn't been seen for 48 hours, also factored in the top five calls answered by police, with 241 between 2017 and 2020.
Calls related to warrants, followed by missing person reports, unwanted person reports and to check the well-being of a tenant lead the top calls generated this year to the hotel.
Velazquez said the number of violations identified by city inspectors may be concerning to some citizens, but proper context needs to be highlighted in terms of the age of the building — as B.C. Housing noted in its statement — and tenants involved.
“When people see how other buildings work in the West End or in Kitsilano, for example, building managers there never have to deal with these things,” Velazquez said.
“It's hard for people to have an accurate picture. So when people hear about these issues [at the St. Helen’s], the first thing they think — and I don't blame them — is to think like, oh, the management is being negligent.”
Added Velazquez: “We’re trying to make it safer. We’re working really hard to get the fire system working 100 per cent. It’s our priority to keep our residents safe and the building safe. But it’s an uphill battle, especially when you go there to fix something and two days later it’s broken again.”
He said he supports the creation of more housing that is built purposely to provide homes for people living with a mental illness, an addiction, or both. Which is the type of housing that 13 of B.C.’s mayors, including Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, pitched to the B.C. government in February.
The mayors want government to open five “complex care” housing sites before the end of this year that cater to people with severe needs related to mental health and addictions. They want the housing to have up to 50 units each and be located on Vancouver Island, in the Interior, in the North and two in the Lower Mainland.
Attorney General David Eby, who is also responsible for housing in B.C., told Glacier Media in February that he supports the concept.
“The work is still being done,” he said at the time.
“It's in the very early stages about what the supports will be, what needs to be there. This isn't something that's going to be done overnight, because we want it to work. I'm willing to bet that the cost will be significantly less than the current cost of homelessness and how we maintain people that have these kinds of challenges.”
Violations identified by city inspectors at the St. Helen’s Hotel occurred the month before city council gave staff authority in July to seek a court injunction against the owners of the Regal Hotel — located on the same Granville Street strip — to ensure repairs get done on the building.
A staff report that went before council said the Regal at 1046 Granville St., which is owned by the Sahota family, was considered to be “in an unsafe condition” and represents “an ongoing risk to the life safety of the residents of the building.”
mhowell@glaciermedia
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