A Main Street hotel that has long been plagued by crime and other issues is being vacated due to safety concerns, city officials say, citing ongoing compliance and permitting issues.
The city says it’s offering assistance to those who have been evacuated from the Manwin Hotel — but the timing of their removal, in the middle of a Winnipeg winter, has come under criticism.
The founder of Street Links told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg she fears that people living at the Manwin will wind up homeless and on the streets in subzero temperatures.
“It is not the right approach and there’s absolutely not an ounce of humanity in putting people out in this weather,” Marion Willis said.
“The truth is the Manwin has been the subject of many challenges. It’s been receiving work orders for years.
“There’s nothing different about the Manwin today that’s different from the spring, the summer and the fall. There’s been lots of opportunity throughout this past year to vacate the Manwin … but to do it at this time of year makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”
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Willis said older buildings like the Manwin — which has been a presence on Main Street for more than a century — are one of the only sources of low-barrier housing in the city.
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“People coming out of encampments and some of the people living at the Manwin are people who will require low-barrier housing as they transition from where they are and get out of survival mode.”
Willis said there are organizations and resources in the city that can help make people into good candidates for better housing, but there needs to be collaboration from the grassroots up — not the top down.
“The way we’re doing things right now has provincial policy, city policy, all of those things creating — unintentionally, by the way — creating homelessness.
“We need to do what we can to retain the housing opportunities — the buildings that we do have — and to retain the occupancy in those buildings. Landlords and property owners need some help here.
“Anybody who is in the business of helping people, especially lower-income people, realizes that the damages and the costs associated with housing challenging groups of people is going to exceed, by far, what they’re going to collect in rent revenue.”
The province’s ambitious plan to combat homelessness and move encampment residents into housing is a good start, Willis said, but needs to be further fleshed out.
Premier Wab Kinew told 680 CJOB’s The Start that feedback on the plan has been positive so far.
“I think you saw a lot of statements being put out by people, and they all have their own, ‘We want to make sure this is included in the plan, but we support it…. We’re going to be watching to make sure this housing resource is there, but we support it,’” Kinew said. “I think there’s a lot of statements like that.
