Residents want to know why empty units can’t be filled up sooner
Residents of Dryden, Ont., like Dody Ridgway, 88, have wanted to know for a long time when empty apartments in a seniors’ building will be filled. Some people have been on the Patricia Gardens wait list for years.
Now, after a rally on July 21 and complaints from the public, they are being told that some of the units are empty because the building, which rents out assisted-living units at market value, is in the process of adding partially subsidized units.
Ridgway said, “I was on the list all these years, and I really needed it the last five years, but there was nothing there for me.” “Even though there were all of these empty apartments, there was nothing there for me.”
Ridgway said that she has been on the wait list for Patricia Gardens for 22 years. After her husband died in 2001, she first filled out an application for a market value unit.
Every year, a caseworker reevaluated her, but each time they told her she didn’t meet the requirements. Still, she was kept on the list, and at one point, she was told that she had a permanent spot on the list until she could qualify for a unit.
She moved into an apartment in 2014, in the meantime. But in the five years she’s been waiting to move into Patricia Gardens, her health has gotten worse. In June, she even had a heart attack. She has trouble getting around now.
High cost to own and ren
People want all levels of government to work together to solve Canada’s housing crisis, which is getting worse as prices go up and the country risks falling further behind on building homes. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) says that the country isn’t on track to build the extra 3.5 million homes that the agency says are needed to make housing affordable again by 2030. This is on top of the current rate of building.
On top of that, rental costs have gone through the roof. This makes it even more important for people like Ridgway to have affordable assisted living.
Dryden District Senior Services Inc. owns and runs Patricia Gardens, which is at 35 Van Horne Ave., right across the street from the Dryden Public Library. Home and Community Care Support Services North West evaluates people who want to live there to see if they can handle living on their own or if they need to go to long-term care.
Residents can get visits from health care professionals and other professionals. The Dryden Area Family Health Team, the Kenora District Services Board Community Paramedicine Program, and Hearing Life all run clinics on-site.
The rally on July 21 outside Patricia Gardens was put on by registered nurse Susan Paquette, and about 20 people showed up.
The next week, a non-profit group called Dryden District Senior Services Inc. responded to the public outcry by putting out a press release on Thursday.
The release said that work is being done to “improve access to supportive housing through community partnerships with Home and Community Care and other community partners.” The Kenora District Services Board (KDSB) will help pay for some of what are called “rent supplement units” that will soon be added to the building.
“In the past, the building was a market rent building, but as the community’s needs change, more and more seniors need financial help to be able to afford a home,” the release said.
“During the change, it was important to keep units empty. The process of filling the empty units has begun and will continue until all of the units are full. This change will not affect leases that are already in place.”
Once this change is finished, the building will have a mix of units with market value and units with rent supplements. But it’s still not clear how many units will be set aside for each type of housing and when the empty units will be filled.
Lack of transparenc
Paquette said she wasn’t happy with the news release and wants more information.
As a foot care nurse who often helps clients at Patricia Gardens, she started talking about their worries about the empty units this spring. She thinks that there were eight empty apartments in May, but now there are between 12 and 13.
She wants to know:
- How many units are empty right now.
- How many people are on the list of those waiting?
- How many of the units will be market rentals and how many will be rent supplement units?
- How many people in the community are helping with this change, and who are they?
“They start to get suspicious when you live in a place where there are more and more empty units and a very long wait list,” Paquette said. “When people know the truth, they don’t have to guess. They don’t have to make assumptions right away. We don’t have to start spreading rumors.”
Home and Community Care Support Services North West told CBC News to ask Dryden District Senior Services Inc. about the number of empty units and the total number of units in the building. As of the time of publication, Dryden District Senior Services Inc. had not answered CBC News’s questions.
In an email sent Thursday, administrative secretary Colleen Hill said, “At this time, we don’t have any more information to share.”
But people who want to live there are still worried about what will happen.
It’s well known that Canada has a serious lack of affordable, good housing, and Dryden, which isn’t very big, is no exception. Everyone knows everyone else, so everyone knows how hard it is for everyone else.– Ethel Christina Johnson, 80
Ridgway, for one, is worried about what will happen to her spot on the wait list now that rent supplement units have been added. She wants to know if she will fall even further down the list because of the change.
Even though Paquette said that Ridgway’s situation is probably not typical—she has heard that the wait list is usually between four and five years—the 88-year-old’s concerns are valid.
Ethel Christina Johnson, who is 80, is also on the waiting list for a market value unit at Patricia Gardens.
Johnson was born and raised in Dryden. At the end of March 2022, she moved back there.
She said that she is just above the limit for rent-geared-to-income housing and that it was “luck or divine intervention” that got her into a privately rented basement apartment in October 2022.
“In June of last year, I was evaluated and put on the waiting list for Patricia Gardens. At the time, I was told that I would probably have to wait four and a half years.”
Johnson said that the apartment she lives in now isn’t the best. She walks with a walker and has to go up stairs to get out of her apartment. Her neighbors work during the day and can’t always check on her.
“I’m getting worse, not better. So eventually I’ll have to find a place like Patricia Gardens… She said, “I’m on several waiting lists.”
“I’m on the list for market value apartments, but there are none in Dryden. I’d have to move to Kenora, Sioux Lookout, Thunder Bay, Fort Frances, or somewhere else with housing.”
Johnson, Ridgway, and others are curious about how Patricia Gardens will be able to meet the needs of those who want market rental units and those who have been waiting for KDSB-provided rent supplement units.
Dryden needs more units of all kinds of housing, but Johnson says that will cost a lot. She said that as baby boomers keep getting older, the need for more housing for older people won’t go away any time soon.
“It’s well known that Canada has a serious lack of affordable, good housing, and Dryden, being a small town,… Since everyone knows everyone else, everyone knows everyone else’s problems, and I think that makes them hit harder.
Paquette is still looking for answers, so she is thinking about holding a public meeting about the open jobs at Patricia Gardens.
“It’s a great place for our older people. It’s not very big, and we could use more space, but everything is close by. It was built with a lot of money from the local community. A lot of people put money into Patricia Gardens, so they feel like it’s theirs.