Amanda Harrison hasn’t been able to sleep.
She tosses and turns, lying awake and wondering if she’s going to get a call saying she will be able to keep a roof over her head.
The daytime isn’t much better.
“There are days where I sit here and just want to cry … because I didn’t ask for this,” she said.
Harrison, along with 83 other residents who called the now-evacuated Hadgraft Wilson Place home, lived in Okanagan College’s new dorms for the last several months. They are now slated to leave and many don’t know where their next real home is.
Their stay at the dorms was always a stopgap measure, in a city where housing is hard to come by. It gave them a more steady place to call home than the hotel rooms they were bouncing to and from for several weeks, but it never really properly met the needs of a close-knit community that struggles with a wide array of challenges, both physical and cognitive.
It was also far from the community they lost at Hadgraft Wilson Place, a space the Pathways Abilities Society sought after for decades to help a population in need of affordable supportive housing find independence.
It was just over a year old when nearby construction of a tower for UBC Okanagan rocked its foundation, sending cracks up the walls and residents from their homes with little notice and, for a while, few possessions. When and if they ever get to return home remains to be seen.
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For Harrison, who uses a wheelchair due to degenerative disk disease, losing that home was a devastating blow.
“It’s been very exhausting taking time out of my day to go look at places, or continually looking at ads and not being able to find something that’s going to suit my needs,” she said.
“There’s two places we looked at, and in one I got stuck in a bathroom. That’s how bad it is.”
To help blunt the loss, UBC Properties Trust gave $12,000 to help tenants who have been displaced and face unexpected costs associated with renting and moving into new accommodations. Those entitled to these new financial supports were informed on July 2 by Pathways along with detailed instructions on how to receive payment.
Harrison said it’s not remotely enough to get them on their feet again. It’s another stopgap.
“Even studios, like the studio that we’re looking at today, it’s $1,500, so one bedroom will be $1,600 to $1,700 without utilities included and I’m on disability,” she said.
“I can’t work right now because of my condition in the wheelchair. So until that’s resolved, I am not employable.”
In the meantime, however, her main concern is this week when she no longer has a place to go to sleep — an issue she’s not alone in facing.
“Some people are still looking, some had to go with family — unfortunately, that is not an option for me,” she said.
“There are people here that don’t have anything. I’m not sure where they’re going, but a lot of them are going with family and friends until they have to find something.”
Marcy Klassen is one of those who are temporarily finding reprieve from the difficult rental market by moving in with family. She will be moving into her daughter’s small studio suite, with her cat, this week.
“It was difficult to find somewhere that people will take a pet and it’s hard.”
That difficulty is showing up in people’s health.
“I’ve had to go in and talk to the doctor and such…. There’s other people that have suffered a lot because of heart issues and depression runs rampant in this group of people,” Klassen said.
“We were all very sad to be ripped apart and left with no support because we were each other’s support.”
Shelley Coste is one of the tenants at Hadgraft Wilson Place who is also feeling the loss of her community acutely. For now, she will be moving in with a friend, but it’s no match for what was taken when the building’s foundation was deemed unsafe.
“It’s been a little tough, because I have a diversability, and so that was my forever home,” Coste said.
“It had grab bars where I needed them, and I had support around me and now we’re all going our separate ways…. It was very much to a community.
Coste described the place they shared as one where “they all struggled together.”
“It made it a lot easier, because we all we could relate,” she said.
“We want to come back home. That’s all we want to do.”
It was March 31, when the city’s fire chief said residents were being evacuated due to safety concerns raised by the construction at the nearby UBCO construction site on Doyle Avenue.
Eighty-four people were given until 6 p.m. on April 2 to gather their belongings and vacate the building.
When they will return home remains to be seen.
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