They lost their home in a fire. Then they lost their dignity.

After losing their home in the Garden Townhomes fire, one family’s members say they are “traumatized” by their experience with the Yellowknife Housing Authority and landlord Northview.

Following a fire on October 21 that burned 12 units in Yellowknife’s Garden Townhomes complex, the family of five continued to pay rent – without actually having any permanent home – while spending 12 weeks at a hotel, worried about becoming homeless.

The family described being paraded through a series of options for replacement homes, an increasingly dehumanizing experience beset by units that leaked or lacked heat – and the sensation of being pressured to accept what was on offer.

“I don’t have a choice, just because I’m a public housing tenant,” said a family member who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. 

“I’ve been silent because I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I will end up homeless.”

Lisa Thurber, head of the territory’s tenants’ association, believes the law as it stands could have left the family homeless in other circumstances.

“Fortunately, Yellowknife Housing Authority is still keeping them on as a client and trying to find them a unit,” said Thurber. 

“But, if we were really to come down to the bottom line, they don’t have to. Our legislation states that.”

Thurber says that’s because the Frustrated Contracts Act could kick in when fire destroys a unit, meaning the lease – or contract – is broken, as it’s no longer physically possible to rent the unit at the centre of the contract. 

Adelle Guigon, the NWT’s chief rental officer, agreed that when a specific unit “can no longer be provided, then the contract can no longer be fulfilled, rendering the contract ended.”

“From that point forward the landlord and tenant no longer have any obligations to each other,” Guigon wrote.

In this case, what happened instead was the family continued to pay rent to the housing authority – the maximum market rent, $1,625 per month excluding power – to “remain in the system,” they said. (Their hotel costs were covered by Northview for the same period.)

But the options that system offered were increasingly depressing, family members said, and the ground seemed to constantly shift as those options were presented.

Since October 21, the family said, the Yellowknife Housing Authority had retracted offers of two units the family had agreed to live in. 

By early January, family members said they had signed a lease for a third unit proposed by the housing authority simply out of fear, despite reservations about it.

A new home

In early November, one family member who spoke with Cabin Radio – we’ll call them Elena – said the family was offered an apartment on Gitzel Street that accommodated Elena’s physical disability, which was detailed to the housing authority in a doctor’s note. We’ll call this apartment Option 1.

A few weeks later, Elena learned the Gitzel Street apartment was no longer an option because the housing authority would not approve the cost of rent. That was the end of Option 1.

Instead, the family was offered another unit at Garden Townhomes. While one block of units at Garden Townhomes had burned, other blocks remained standing.

In this case, the unit being offered had a clear view of the rubble where the family’s old home once stood, which the family found deeply distressing.

We’ll call this Option 2.

The family visited the “fully renovated” Option 2 and signed a new lease, despite concerns like a missing smoke detector, because life at the hotel was becoming unbearable. The family’s three children had no internet access at the hotel to do their homework, Elena’s spouse would spend sleepless nights on the hotel sofa where their legs hung off, and it was impossible to cook anything in the suite.

Elena and their family began to move into Option 2 in December, over the days leading up to New Year’s. But they soon discovered water leaking from the roof.

The family spent days emptying buckets of dirty water to protect remaining belongings.

“I lost everything in the fire … and now I’m afraid my stuff will get ruined,” said Elena.

“What if the ceiling just collapsed on our heads while we were sleeping? We just survived a fire. We can’t afford to lose any more.”

Elena now believes, based on a conversation with a housing authority employee, that the unit was made available to the family without having been appropriately inspected first.

Elena said the family reported the leak at Option 2 to the Yellowknife Housing Authority multiple times in the days leading up to and after New Year’s. Elena remembers being told to wait at the unit for a maintenance worker, but said nobody came.

Instead, the family was told to move again – to another Garden Townhomes unit, which we’ll call Option 3.

The family agreed to visit Option 3 on January 5, after the housing authority had inspected it.

According to a family friend, Reyhan Sarikaya, only during that visit did the family learn the housing authority had given up Option 2 from its inventory. They couldn’t go back to the unit and they would need to sign a new lease for this alternative unit. Option 3 was the last option.

“They’re telling Elena: You gave up that unit, you can’t go back there,” Sarikaya recalled. “Elena asked for an emergency work order, that’s all Elena did, and nobody came.”

Elena said the family wanted to stay at the leaking apartment, Option 2, if the leak was fixed. They felt too exhausted and afraid to move yet again, to an unknown unit.

Sarikaya noted the family had been told Option 2 was “fully renovated” before it began leaking. The family, Sarikaya said, felt deceived.

Tenants’ association leader Thurber said the family was given “no choice” but to take Option 3.

Elena signed a lease for Option 3. The family moved in – and promptly discovered the heating did not work.

Between January 6 and January 8, the family had no heat as temperatures dropped toward -40C at night during a vicious winter cold spell. The family kept warm by huddling together in a bedroom with their winter snowsuits on, blankets, and three space heaters running, which the family purchased at Canadian Tire for $150.

The heating only began to work on January 16, Elena said.

Thurber said if the family had rejected this unit, the risk of homelessness was “so real” – real enough that the family perceived there to be no choice, despite more than a week without heat in some of the city’s coldest weather in years.

“What do you do, when you’re the provider and the regulator?” Thurber said of the authorities that make up the NWT’s public housing system.

“Can’t discipline yourself. It’s like trying to tell my teenager to ground himself.”

The Yellowknife Housing Authority, which is part of Housing NWT, declined to comment on specific questions and instead released a statement.

“Yellowknife Housing Authority staff worked with Northview to ensure tenants were provided alternative accommodations,” wrote spokesperson Jeanne Yurris of Garden Townhomes residents who lost homes.

Thurber, though, said the family’s experience reflected discrimination given the initial Gitzel Street apartment, Option 1, was rejected by the housing authority despite its accessibility.

Thurber says there was a lack of accountability during the subsequent shuffling of the family through options that had leaks or could not be heated.

Northview did not respond to questions before publication.

“There’s no dignity in the whole situation,” said Elena.

“They didn’t treat me with respect or dignity.”