Biz owner pays $4 million for inner-city housing

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This article was published 20/05/2021 (1273 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The plight of Winnipeg’s homeless population weighed on the mind of philanthropist John Pollard after he bought a downtown hotel and tenants had to move into rooming houses.

“There has to be a better way for them to live,” said Pollard, co-CEO of Pollard Banknote. “If we want to deal with the homelessness problem, I think we’ve got to build homes.”

Pollard decided to do something about that; he’ll pay half the $8-million cost of building an apartment block in the Centennial neighbourhood that will house 47 people, including people who use drugs. The remainder will be paid by the three levels of government. The three-storey complex at 390 Ross Ave. is on track to be opened in the fall of 2022.

As Pollard spoke Friday, his voice tightened as he recounted his purchase of the Fortune Building and adjacent Winnipeg Hotel on Main Street at St. Mary Avenue.

People were living in the rundown hotel, and had no other option for a room available at welfare rates.

“You look at some of these downtrodden Main Street strip hotels and they don’t look like very nice places to live — and they’re not,” he said. “They are all absolutely bursting full.”

“It’s full of bed bugs, it’s falling apart (with) lots of criminal activity; there’s pushers and there’s pimps,” said Pollard.

The Trudeau and Pallister governments are chipping in to build the facility, however neither was able to provide details about their share.

“All hands are on deck to tackle this crisis,” Manitoba Families Minister Rochelle Squires said.

The province will fund room and board for residents by allocating welfare and housing transfers; and provide opportunities for training and counselling. The building will have 24/7 support staff and communal areas for dining and social activities.

The city approved the project, previously dubbed the Ellen Ross House, in 2019, but the pandemic delayed funding approval.

Federal support is coming through the national housing strategy, which has largely focused on shoring up existing units and providing stipends, but has prompted some new construction in Winnipeg.

“This is truly a coming-together of all levels of government to do the work we need to do, to help secure housing for Canadians,” said Liberal MP Adam Vaughan, the parliamentary secretary to the federal housing minister.

Pollard decried a “perverse model” of low-income housing that allow landlords to house tenants in unsafe squalor ​because their only funding comes source is whatever amounts of money welfare payments provide to recipients.

He argued neighbourhoods such as Centennial need extra housing units right away, and noted that the local community association had no opposition to the project, even with its plans to house drug users.

“Those people have been so welcoming, and there was no sort of not-in-my-backyard attitude,” Pollard said.

“It’s hard to live in the city of Winnipeg right now and not see that we have a challenge with homelessness.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca