DISPLACED residents of a St. James apartment block will have to wait a little longer to retrieve their belongings.
An email sent Tuesday from Lakewood Agencies, which manages Birchwood Terrace, said the company remains “cautiously optimistic” that uprooted tenants will be able to access their suites “in a week or so” to collect some of their belongings.
About 250 residents were evacuated from the complex at 2440 Portage Ave. on May 9 under an emergency order due to structural damage found on several steel supports in the underground parkade.
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES
About 250 residents of Birchwood Terrace at 2440 Portage Ave. had to leave their residences
May 9 because of structural damage discovered in the underground parkade.
Many of the residents have been living in hotels since, relying on supports from the Canadian Red Cross until the end of May, when the province announced it would continue to cover accommodation and meal costs as long as necessary.
“It’s just a nightmare. I don’t even have my summer clothes. They’re all in there,” resident Judith Stanley said Tuesday.
Property management intends to schedule visits to the building from tenants. Security and a sign-in sheet will be used to ensure no one stays overnight. A prior email suggested early stage collection could have begun last week, but noted that “accurately predicting dates requires information which we don’t have.”
The earliest possible date for people to move back into their suites suggested by Lakewood Agencies is Sept. 1, with details provided sometime after Aug. 12.
Many have no interest in doing so.
“Oh God, no. No, no, no,” Stanley, 58, said. “I can’t. I think I’d be too nervous there.”
She will be one of the residents eligible for a $1,000 per-unit payment Lakewood is offering “in consideration of the unanticipated moving expenses incurred by the former tenants not returning,” according to an email sent Friday.
A rent payment program for those who do choose to return has also been mapped out: the monthly rent will be the same as it was prior to the evacuation, effective for 12 months after the tenant moves back in, and a rebate of half of one month’s rent will be paid to tenants, along with the payment of the first month’s rent.
Stanley said about half of the tenants she knows are planning to return. Others have expressed concerns that the repairs will result in skyrocketing rent costs a year from now.
“We all know the rent is going to go up dramatically, they’ve got to pay for everything,” she said.
Stanley said she’s excited to get the chance to pack up her things, but the last few months have been traumatic. Her motorcycle was stolen from outside the complex not long after the evacuation, and she was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder related to the turmoil.
“There have been a couple of days, I can’t even get out of bed, because I just can’t handle it,” she said through tears.
A city spokesperson declined to comment on the move-in timeline scheduled by property management, but said the evacuation order would have to be lifted for tenants to enter in any capacity.
“For the city to lift the order, there would need to be a request from the property owner along with confirmation from their engineer that the property no longer represents a public-safety risk,” he said in an email.
An email sent in June to tenants said Lakewood Agencies was not speaking with media.
malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
Malak Abas
Reporter
Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.
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