Landlady sold house, new buyers decided to live in the basement suite and rent out the more expensive upstairs suite
(By News Desk)
“The supportive housing building [on School Road] went up real quick. Why can’t they do that for seniors?”
Retired care aide Carole Carlton (70) is at her wit’s end. The house in Gibsons where she rents a basement suite for $800 has sold, she has to be out by the end of June.
When she rented the suite 1,5 years ago, $800 was already well below market value but her landlady, who asked not to be named, believed that seniors deserve affordable rent.
The landlady lives in Alberta and had planned to eventually retire in the house, close to her son and his family. But when they moved off the Coast, she found it cumbersome to go back and forth for maintenance and decided to put it on the market.
“It was a tough decision, but I thought Carole would be able to stay,” she told The Coast Clarion. As it turned out, the buyers decided to move into the basement suite and rent out the more expensive upstairs suite.
“My heart goes out to her,” she says. “Carole is such a good renter, she pays on time, she is self-sufficient, she’s reliable, she’s clean and tidy and well-organized. I am so sorry my decision to sell impacted her like this.”
“I keep thinking the new owners are going to throw me out on June 30,” Carlton says. “What if I have no place to go? This is so stressful.”
Carlton says she can pay $1,100 including utilities, leaving her $400 a month to live on if she can’t work.
She has advertised widely and springs into action whenever a suite becomes available but her attempts have so far not met with success. “You call, but the line is busy and the voicemail box is full.”
Someone offered her shared accommodation in Powell River. “I don’t want to leave the Lower Coast,” Carlton says. “I’ve lived here since 1977, this is my community.” She’s from Britain and has no family in Canada.
After her retirement from Totem Lodge, where she worked for 17 years, Carlton became a full time private care aide for an elderly couple in Gibsons.
Eventually, the husband passed away and the wife moved to Christenson Village. She is 90 now. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday Carlton takes her to her home for three hours. They eat together and watch tv. Both enjoy the visits immensely. Carlton also goes to stores for her.
“I’m really going to miss that if I don’t have a place to live. And I’m sure she will, too.”
Carlton received an offer to be a live-in care aide for another woman. While she was discussing the arrangement with the family, the woman’s condition suddenly worsened and she was taken to a facility on the Main Land.
Carlton would like to have her own place; a live-in care giver has no housing security. But at this point, she is desperate. “I’m willing to do house sitting or pet sitting, anything, but it’s difficult with Covid.”
She looks around in the tidy, clean and cozy suite and chokes back tears. She has nice furniture and beautiful pieces of art. “This is my home, these are my memories. What am I going to do?”
The landlady’s real estate agent secured her a small storage unit, but it won’t fit her furniture. All larger storage units are full on the Coast. Carlton is on several waiting lists; some places no longer take applications because the wait time is at least five years.
Carlton gave massages and did Reiki, but she needs to get rid of stuff and sold her massage table. It’s a loss to the community, she donated massage treatments to fundraisers.
If she can’t find a place to live, she fears she will have to sleep on a foamy in the van she bought when she was still working. She does not have money for an RV or a travel trailer and wonders what will happen when the van goes.
She’s terrified of becoming homeless. “It’s so daunting. I don’t know if I’ll be able to work as a companion to an elderly person then, I’d have to find a place to use the bathroom. I’m too old for this,” she says, crying.
There are so many people in the same position, she says later. “Why don’t they build housing for seniors?”
BC Housing has been on a hotel buying spree to turn them into affordable housing, I hope someone is lobbying them hard about purchasing the newly renovated (with elevator) former Ritz that has been sitting vacant for a very long time. Who do we need to send emails to?
I went to the town hall in Gibsons to find out who owns the renovated Ritz Hotel, and was told that they could not divulge that information. There are dozens of bachelor suites that have been sitting empty for years now – in spite of the tragedy unfolding all around us.
Zoning for residents instead of investors. It seems councils are all ears when condo-hotel plans are thrust upon us but have become hard of hearing as they age. For just as long as the microphone has been sniped for The George developer’s implacable stripes, residents have been getting a regular Rogering. We can decide to fix this next election. Vote for your community instead of the steady stream of sell-outs trying to dupe it.
Add to it the proposed sell off of public land (the parking area beside Inglis House)to well-heeled developers and the waters get very murky indeed. Public park funds have gone to well-heeled public market promoters. The give-away of Winn Road. It goes on.
Ah,the Inglis House breeding grounds for the CCF/NDP right here in Gibsons. History was made here,anyone remember?
Sorry for this lady who spent part of her life helping out the people who lived in this small town,but the fix is in, the money is coming and there is no stopping it, the town folk of Gibsons offered it up on a plate a couple of elections ago when they voted for the lawyer and his merry band of pro developers, I watched it happen in Deep Cove in the 90’s, when we bought here in ‘96 prices were within a working stiff range, my how things have changed but time doesn’t stand still. The sad part is your last two stories [ferry and housing] are happening under the NDP watch,friend of the working class and elderly,hopefully this woman will be able to live out her life in the place she has called home for so many years.
Add one more senior to the list of people looking for a place I can afford. I received notice 2 days ago and also have to be out by June 30. I too want to stay on the Lower Coast, but what are my chances? I’ve been care-taking others’ property for much of my time here since 1992, maintaining and improving yard and garden, alerting the owner to any other issues that arise, and just being a presence the owner can rely on to keep his/her best interest always at the forefront. In today’s rental climate, wish me luck!
Any compassionate landlords reading this story – it is worth noting if the original landlord had given Carole a long-term lease the new owners would have had to honour it.
My place sold recently and I had multiple years left on my lease. It was a relief. Please consider signing 5+ yr leases with good tenants before you sell. In this market it will not make it any harder to sell the place (my place still went 300K over asking!)
I hope everyone who finds this story heartbreaking will write to the provincial government and ask them to both increase compensation for people displaced for landlord’s use and increase the required notice. As it is now, every other non-fault reason for eviction has more notice than landlord’s use.
Governing lexicon of not governing:
Developer
Houses
Inventory
Stock
Shareholders
Stakeholders
Investors.
These are all added, the aspect of governing is a balance of distributions with taxes, not selling off assets, dividing haves and have-nots, seeking investors, outsourcing local jobs, bringing in ‘specialists’ or spending endless debt based relations with no consideration of conservative measures to pay off debts creatively and apply for our federal money back, to remedy infrastructure decay such as needs in water ( without meter bribes as it is our tax to begin with).
My daydream once was that if I ever won the lottery, I’d buy a hotel in Gibsons that seemed to have a low occupancy rate much of the time, sparkle it up, then convert it to low-cost housing and a community gathering place. With a bigger win, I’d snap up the building next door to it, turning that into an arts and performance center while maintaining its beloved cinema. With infinitely more, I’d purchase every acre of forested land left on the Coast and keep it as is, for the joy and delight of us all! Ah, dreams! Meanwhile, as Colbert would say, my heart aches for everyone facing impossible hurdles in affordable housing. I’m acutely aware of how gut-wrenching, shocking, humiliating, and absolutely isolating it feels to look into the face of that terrifying abyss called homelessness and know you could conceivably fall, and fall, and never stop falling….