On the heels of a rally calling for the closure of a Winnipeg hotel, one community advocate said she will continue pressuring for its closure.
The Manwin Hotel has been the site of a slew of homicides, stabbings and drug busts. It’s also a building that currently houses more than two dozen people. Situated on Main Street, the hotel has been visited by city and fire department inspectors looking at the housing conditions.
While a vacate order has not been filed, the City of Winnipeg issued orders requesting building infrastructure to be in compliance in August. No fire code violations were issued either. The inspectors were there for a joint inspection with the province.
As a rally took place outside the building last Friday, the hotel’s interior spoke to the concerns that some advocates have had. Broken doors, loose wires and drug paraphernalia littered the hotel floor, with unfinished floors and ceilings around it.
Vivian Ketchum, one of the advocates rallying for the hotel to shut down, said she’s frustrated.
“The building is so badly damaged inside…. It’s not even fixable. It’s not even reparable,” Ketchum said. “The floors are spongy. I didn’t see any fire extinguishers. The sprinklers seem like (they) were tied up. There’s wiring all over the place and a lot of water.”
According to Ketchum, conditions in the building have gotten worse in the week since she and others rallied outside. She said graffiti on the walls had increased, and the upper floor windows were broken, along with the plywood at a window on the ground floor.
City inspectors were back at the property earlier this week. According to the city, communication is ongoing with the property’s owner to identify and resolve any issues. They further noted that an order to vacate would be issued if there were life safety issues.
When asked, the province said that if the property owner is given an order to further improve the building’s conditions, the scale of work required would determine how long they would have. In an email on Oct. 20, it added that whenever a notice is issued, follow-up inspections are conducted.
“Buildings may be ordered closed for a variety of reasons including lack of heat, lack of water, sewage backups, where the basic necessities of life cannot be met, and/or when building conditions are causing a safety or health hazard to exist,” the province said.
Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links, said closing the building isn’t the right way to go. She said hotels like Manwin provide low-barrier housing to those who need it. But even then, she added that her organization does not put clients into a building that she and her team won’t go into.
Willis said her team is “prohibited” from entering the hotel.
“The people we would be housing in some of these places would be the most difficult to house and to retain in housing…. I think we need to take these situations and we need to learn from them. I don’t think shuttering these places is really the answer,” Willis said.
She added that people can work with the owners of buildings like the Manwin to see how they can be improved.
“Let’s really start working together to figure out how we can make some of these high-risk buildings — and in the Manwin’s case, totally unlivable … livable,” Willis said.
For Ketchum, advocacy work to close the building will continue. She said tenants of the hotel deserve dignity and respect — something the building is missing.
Another rally, she says, is being planned.
— with files from Global’s Teagan Rasche
Comments