MOULD KILLS

Public housing tenant with mouldy basement questions how N.S. plans to maintain new units

CBC
Tue, October 10, 2023 

Amilia Williams has been fighting to have her leaking basement fixed for over a year. (Dan Jardine/CBC - image credit)

When Amilia Williams goes into the basement of her home for more than a few minutes, she wears personal protective equipment.

The basement of her public housing unit on Romans Avenue in Halifax floods regularly, and she said her possessions are covered in mould that permeates the home.

She said her children are often sick, and she has cleaned mould spores out of her young granddaughter's nose.

Those problems have led Williams to a yearlong battle with the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency, a Crown corporation that manages the province's government-owned public housing units.

"I know a lot of my neighbours are terrified to say anything," she said. "Me, I don't care anymore. I am done ... I didn't build this place. I didn't cause the leaks."

Williams's unit isn't the only one in disrepair. According to numbers from the Nova Scotia Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, 102 of the 11,202 public housing units in the province have been vacant longer than the standard two-month turnover period between tenants, down from 142 last year.

Those units could be chronically vacant because of the wait for accessibility upgrades or required maintenance and restoration.

But with the Nova Scotia government's recent announcement that it plans, for the first time in 30 years, to invest in 222 new public housing units, some are wondering if those units will be maintained more effectively than the existing stock.

"It'll be great to actually see that they build public housing," Williams said. "But now my big question is who's going to maintain them? Are they actually going to take care of them? Because there's no point in building them if they're not going to take care of the property properly."

'Strong, toxic smell'

Williams's unit first flooded in September 2022 after post-tropical storm Fiona tore through Nova Scotia. She said it took her four days to clear water from her basement.

But in the months to follow, it wasn't dry for long. The basement flooded repeatedly as she asked the public housing agency for help in what she calls a "never ending battle."

"It's just like getting hit in the face and it smells like wet moss or wet rotting wood and it's just getting out of hand," she said.

Amilia Williams has taken videos and photos of mould in her basement and on her belongings.

Williams has taken videos and photos of mould in her basement and on her belongings. (Submitted by Amilia Williams)

Williams said maintenance workers did bring her industrial fans and a dehumidifier, but they told her it looks like the footings of the building are coming away from the foundation, which is a costly repair.

In late September, she was told her basement would be fixed in December — 15 months after the first flood.

Around the same time, a therapy worker who was providing autism intervention services to Williams's granddaughter refused to come back to the home due to the mould.

CBC News viewed a letter written by the worker, stating the home had a "strong toxic smell of mould/mildew."

Reviewing maintenance standards

Pam Menchenton, the executive director of client services for the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency, said the average age of the province's public housing units is 42 years, and the most common maintenance issues relate to plumbing or leaking.

She said maintenance calls are triaged and if a matter is urgent, it will be dealt with "right away." But there can be delays with bigger issues.

"We're still experiencing, like so many others in the world of building and construction right now, some challenges around getting contractors to help us do the work," Menchenton said. "Now, I will say that we have really been very aggressive about trying to address some of these maintenance issues."

Menchenton said the agency has been reviewing its maintenance standards over the past year, and hopes to improve for both the existing units and the new units. She said that could include hiring more staff and developing a program of preventative maintenance.

Pam Menchenton said public housing is looking at setting new service standards for unit turnaround. (David Laughlin/CBC)

"It's not an easy boat to turn around but we are addressing all of that slowly," she said.

The public housing wait-list currently sits at 4,907 households, with the average wait time for a placement sitting at around two years. That's down from 6,596 last December.

Divesting units

Nova Scotia's Housing Department is also planning to divest some units as part of pilot programs to transfer some existing public housing to community-based organizations or resident ownership.

Vicki Elliot-Lopez, the department's senior executive director of housing, said many of the transferred units will be in the historically Black communities of North Preston and East Preston, where the Preston Area Housing Fund has been seeking to own and operate affordable housing.

Other divested units will be single-family homes in rural areas that aren't close to services and amenities tenants need.

Elliot-Lopez said the Housing Department is committed to ensuring the number of rent-geared-to-income affordable housing units does not decrease due to these initiatives.

"I think there's a misunderstanding that in order to be rent-geared-to-income and to be deeply affordable, it has to be owned and operated by the province and that's not the case at all," she said. "We have community housing providers that offer rent-geared-to-income units as well."

Elliot-Lopez said some of the units will be repaired before being divested or funding will be made available for repairs, but some will be put up for sale as they are.