Vancouver – The City of Vancouver is moving to close another low-income single room occupancy building, this time the Picadilly Hotel, also known as the Pender Place Hotel, located at 622 West Pender Street. A notice to tenants from the City of Vancouver tells the building’s occupants that if the owners fail to remedy deficiencies in the building by February 28, 2007, the building will have to be vacated. The Picadilly has 39 rooms, 12 of which are currently occupied by low-income residents at high risk of homelessness. The remainder of the rooms remain empty because welfare has refused to issue cheques for tenants who wish to rent rooms there.

“The twelve tenants have been given 19 days notice of their potential eviction,” says David Eby, lawyer with the Pivot Legal Society. “While this is an improvement on the half hour eviction notice the Burns Block residents received, it is hardly the approach that we want the City to take in this type of situation.”

Yesterday evening, Vancouver’s city council instructed staff to identify a “test case” low-income building for use of the Standards of Maintenance By-law. This by-law permits City officials to enter residential buildings and make repairs to ensure the safety of tenants, and then bill those repairs back to the owner of the building. A 1990 decision of the B.C. Supreme Court called Carline Holdings v. City of Vancouver determined that the City’s powers under this by-law are well founded in the Vancouver Charter, refuting a defendant’s argument that the by-law only permitted “cosmetic” repairs.

“The timing is perfect for the Picadilly to be the City of Vancouver’s building maintenance test case,” said Eby. “Instead of punishing the tenants by sending them out into the street, the City could punish the owner for letting this building fall into such disrepair by making the necessary repairs to ensure tenant safety and sending the owner a bill. It’s a win win situation: the tenants stay housed and the building is improved at no cost to the city.”

The tenants have been advised by the Notice to contact the Tenant Assistant Program of the City of Vancouver for assistance relocating. Eby says that this is no remedy at all. “The Burns Block residents were supposedly offered relocation as well, but several of my clients from that building were homeless for periods of days, weeks or months. The one tenant who was assisted was homeless for two days first. The rest had to find their own housing, and those that are housed now live in even worse buildings. At least one former Burns Block resident is still homeless.”  The Burns Block building, which was closed by the city in March of 2006, would have been another perfect candidate for the new initiative. Unfortunately, instead of making the minimum necessary repairs and billing the owner, the City closed the building, sending the 18 residents from that building into the street with half an hour’s notice. The building is now up for auction and will be sold on March 1, 2007,the day after the scheduled closure of the Picadilly.

For more information contact:
David Eby – Pivot Legal Society – (778) 865-7997
“Al and Raj” – Operators of the Picadilly Hotel – (604)682-3221

 ———————-
About Pivot Legal Society
Pivot’s mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those most on the margins.   We believe that everyone, regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::