Imagine having to move three times in less than six months. It’s a reality for many people who called Hadgraft Wilson Place home.
They’ve been shuffled from place to place ever since an evacuation order was issued on March 31, due to damage to their apartment building caused by construction activity next door, on the site of the 46 storey UBC Okanagan downtown Kelowna campus, at 550 Doyle Avenue.
The latest upheaval; those who had been put up temporarily at Okanagan College had to be out by August 15, to make way for students moving into the new dorm building along K.L.O Road.
While they are very thankful to the college for giving them somewhere to lay their heads temporarily, the whole experience has left people emotionally drained.
“It’s been awful, to be honest with you,” said Monique Saebels, who had found new accommodation in West Kelowna for herself and her elderly mother.
“We’ve moved around from hotel to hotel to college and our community was split apart. Then we got to be here at the college. We were all back together and today we’re all split apart again.”
Many of the residents of Hadgraft Wilson Place, operated by Pathways Abilities Society, are people with disabilities. Amanda Harrison told Castanet she might end up in a homeless shelter unless she finds a placed in the next few days.
Single mother Megan Beckmann is paying more for her latest rental than she wanted to, but says she had to take what she could get to put a roof over her children’s heads.
"I had probably applied at 20 different places, only heard back from a couple. I viewed maybe five or six and got one call back, and I had to take the very first one that offered it to me,” Beckman explained.
The women wonder what the official response to their dilemma says about Kelowna.
"We have to have development and construction but there also has to some form of rules. And I think it kind of lays down to a systematic stigma of money versus people with no money – where we were treated as if we weren’t as important as the building that was going to be put in place of us,” said Beckman.
“When did money become more important than actually people?” asks Saebels.
In July, UBC Properties Trust offered up to $12,000 to each household affected, as temporary assistance. the equivalent amount would be deducted from any financial settlements or monetary awards resulting from the legal action underway.
A lawyer representing some of the residents in a potential class action lawsuit raised concerns about how the payments would be handled. Adam Bordignon with Napoli Shkolnik Canada said they would continue to put pressure on UBC to ensure that all displaced residents of Hadgraft Wilson Place are able to obtain safe, affordable, and accessible long-term housing.
The executive director of Pathways abilities society, which operated Hadgraft Wilson Place, isn’t even sure if people will be back living in the building by this time next year. Charisse Daley says the stability and structural integrity is still being assessed.
She doesn’t even know what to say anymore to residents.
“When we had our grand opening a year ago, we did not see this coming.”