More details on the "Notice to Vacate"

Recently, we all received a very well crafted letter designed to make us believe this Rehab. project is approved and that we need to *act fast* -- in order to take advantage of the *great deal* they're offering us. They want us all to sign off as quickly as possible and prepare to move out into the over.saturated 1% vacancy rate rental market.

Well, the truth is rather different. A number of us have spoken with Janet Halldorson, RTB's Rehabilitation Officer -- and Shindico's application has only just been received (from my conversation with her last Friday, she had yet to look it over). This means there are still various stages and hoops in the process that must be completed prior to Shindico having any official approval to begin this work -- let alone start giving us these type of threatening letters. In fact, tenants must first receive official notice of the application having been submitted to the RTB. This is one of the notices I received last year when they first attempted it, my name and other details were blurred out, but it basically looks like this:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_t9gT8M2MgoA/Sgi2BXeGdEI/AAAAAAAAAA8/esDttKcGdug/s1600-h/notice-3.jpg

Then, we are entitled to examine their documents and challenge the rehabilitation proposal. Janet Halldorson repeatedly stated that from what we told her, the tone of the letter was highly inappropriate, as was the verbal communications some have received from Shindico (i.e. Shindico's Colleen O'Rourke stated that construction crews would enter suites after April and make them uninhabitable, with effectively no clear plan on where the displaced tenants would be moved to. Effectively, Shindico wants all of us to feel very threatened and vulnerable by choosing to stay.)

Incidentally, although Shindico's letter reached us, they didn't bother forwarding it to the RTB -- Janet Halldorson seemed genuinely concerned by what she was hearing about it from us. Now, at least one of the tenants has faxed her a copy of this letter, so she is currently aware of its contents. Having said that, she requested that we fax her our letter so she can examine it and consider what to do next. When Janet was contacted last Friday, she made it clear she was interested in hearing from us and asked we include a cover letter outlining our concerns and if we felt Shindico's tactics were in our opinion "intimidating in nature" (her words).

NOTE: Janet Halldorson's fax number -- 945-6273 and email -- janet.halldorson (at) gov.mb.ca


Given the actual (non) status of their application currently, and Janet Halldorson's reaction, it would appear that Shindico's strategy is to *entice* as many tenants as possible to leave now, in order to lessen any possible challenges or delays in the application approval process. The more tenants who leave now, the easier the approval process will be and the more clout they'll have to say: "Our buiding is x% vacant now, and this means the Rehab project won't be much of an inconvenience to remaining tenants".

In any case, the important thing right now is for EVERYONE in the building to be aware that they need not sign anything for Shindico. We also need to contact Janet Halldorson about this in the letter she's requested. A number of us have been speaking in the halls, and feel it would be helpful to hold a tenants' meeting on this ASAP. Together, we can write up a letter that we can have all tenants sign prior to submitting. This way if any tenant has trouble with getting the letter done for whatever reason, this would allow them to have their voice included and heard.

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Brian Grant (Housing Development Coordinator @ West Broadway Development Corporation), has mentioned there is the possibility that legal action could be taken as a precedent setting case, based on this being a human rights issue. We, as tenants do have a right to safe, affordable housing and current legislation/policy is making that less and less of a reality.

According to Brian Grant, the bulk of low to middle-income rental housing stock is currently being lost to condo conversions and rehab projects like this one. The reality is there is NOTHING stopping any of us having to relive a potential displacement from our next home in the event we move to another rental after this. This is the current trend right now.