Residents, advocate frustrated by 5-year wait for security fence at Manitoba Housing complex

Residents say the courtyard of a Manitoba Housing complex on Balmoral Street has been a favoured spot for drinking and drug usefor years, but installing a fence to keep out trespassers has proven a hard task for the government to complete.

Centre Villagewas featured in a prominent British newspaper in 2016 as a failure of design for low-income housing, promptinglocalmedia coverage and a promise from the NDPgovernment at the time to do a securityreview.

More than five yearslater, the majority of the suites in the 25-unit complex are boarded up and the safety issues persist.

One resident told CBC News he awoke last week to the sounds of someone attempting to smash through the plywood boarding on one of the empty suiteswith an axe.

"They need to install a fence and some gates," the resident said.The plea was almost identical to what residents said in 2016.

The courtyard of the building can't be seen from the street or sidewalk. The day CBCNews visited the complex,non-residents were observed there consuming what appeared to bedrugs.

The vacant units are a sore spot for housing advocates. Last year Manitoba Housing estimated there were more than 9,000 households on the waiting list.

"It's incredibly frustrating, especially when we have a homelessness crisis here in Winnipeg and we have subsidized units sitting empty. That is infuriating because those are the units that we need for people that are low income," said Codi Guenther, the director at New Journey Housing,a housing resource centrethat helps newcomers to Canada.

"We continue to work with some of our families that do live in this building and we've seen the same problems since the building opened ... none of thatsurprises me whatsoever," Guenther said, referring to the security issues.

A spokesperson for Manitoba Housing says there is a plan to install a fence around Centre Village.

"Manitoba Housing has conducted a security review, including the use of crime prevention through environmental design principles, in order to determine whether security upgrades are needed. The province is examining possible ways to improve some of the issues at this building to enhance tenant safety," wrote the spokesperson in an email.

The years of delay in fixing the problem havealsodrawn fire from the Manitoba Liberals.

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont called Manitoba Housing "one of the worst landlords in the province," accusing the provincial department under successive governments of not taking security issues seriously.

"You have a vulnerable population and then you let predators in. And that's the problem," said Lamont.

Those concerns were echoed by the neighbourhood's city councillor.

Coun.Cindy Gilroy(Daniel McIntyre)said the province has to not only address the shortage of low-income housing, but a crisisof alcohol and drug addiction happening on Winnipeg's streets.

CBC Newsasked foran interview with a senior staff person from Manitoba Housing on why it's taken so long to install a fence around the complex, but a response wasn't received by deadline.