EDMONTON- The St. Albert Youth Centre is searching for a new home, after being evicted by its landlord over a repair dispute.
Since 1997, the youth centre has provided support for hundreds of young people in the community.
“I was kind of picked on for most of my (school) years. So when I started coming here it was kind of like ‘nobody’s threatening me, I’m not picked on, I can physically just be me,'” said 18-year-old Kaitlyn Tamsley, who started coming to the youth centre on a daily basis when she was 12.
“This has become a bit of a haven… This is where they’ll come to express whatever emotion they’ve encountered during the day,” said Executive Director Brenda O’Neill, “They’re always welcome here and they’re welcome no matter what’s going on.”
But the youth centre has had a tough year. After having some of its funding cut, the centre was forced to re-negotiate its lease and has been renting the space on a month-to-month basis since January. The centre underwent major renovations two years ago, but this spring when the snow started to melt the facility’s roof started to leak.
The landlord got a quote for the repair, and told the St. Albert Youth Centre it would have to foot the $33,000 bill.
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“We basically explained to them it wasn’t our responsibility and we weren’t prepared to pay it. They acknowledged it wasn’t our responsibility. They said if we didn’t want to pay it then they were going to terminate our lease,” explained Bruce Childs, the treasurer of the St. Albert Youth Centre.
“They basically said that they were going to exercise their right to evict us as of July 31st and we’ve had no further contact with them,” Childs added.
Now, the organization only has a few weeks to find a new space. The city says it will do what it can to help, but says there isn’t much it can do other than suggest and help find a new location.
O’Neill says they’re doing everything they can to find a suitable location, but worries what may happen if they aren’t successful.
“It’s a real challenge because we’ve always been able to find a way around things, do things differently,” she explained.
Tamsley is worried about the other kids as well. She says she wouldn’t be where she is now if it weren’t for the friends she met while attending the centre for so many years.
“When I decided to start coming here it kind of opened a whole new world,” she said. “I made a lot of friends, friends for life kind of deal.”
The landlord of the building did not respond to requests for comment.
With files from Jenna Bridges, Global News.
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