Single room occupancy hotels still serve as housing in Winnipeg despite dwindling stock

Angela Tates was living alongside a river in Winnipeg before getting a room in the McLaren Hotel on Main Street, which she has now called home for the past 10 years.

It's believed Tates is among hundreds in the city who rely on single room occupancy hotels as a place to live, according to Equal Housing Initiative, a non-profit organization which has plans to retrofit and provide supports to residents at the McLaren.

"It was really hard to get a reasonable place to live," Tates said. "When I lived by the river I kind of just slept outside and went and ate at the mission and took a shower at the mission."

"It's nice to get into a place like this even though it's not very elegant or very high-class. It was reasonably priced and it was available."

Tates pays $450 per month for a small suite with no kitchen or private washroom. There are two shared washrooms on each floor with one toilet and tub. During a tour of the building given to CBC, one resident complained the hot water on his floor hadn't worked in four years.

WATCH | Residents, advocates on dwindling stock of single-room occupancy hotels:

Dwindling stock of single room occupancy hotels in Winnipeg

2 years ago

Duration 3:11

Hundreds in the city rely on single room occupancy hotels as a place to live, according to Equal Housing Initiative, a non-profit organization which has plans to retrofit and provide supports to residents at the McLaren Hotel on Main Street.

A 2005 report titled Beyond a Front Desk: The Residential Hotel as Home from the University of Winnipeg's Institute of Urban Studies defines single room occupancy hotels or SROs as buildings that were previously operated as traditional hotels.

"We know that in Winnipeg's case, probably at its peak I would suggest, we probably had a thousand people living in downtown hotels as their primary residence," said Jino Distasio, a University of Winnipeg professor of urban geography who was one of the principal investigators of that report.

Distasio said the stock of SRO hotels in Winnipeg is dwindling.

"Over the last two decades we've lost upwards of a dozen hotels in our downtown, and that's been to demolition, to fire and also to conversion," he said.

The most recent example is the 43-unit Windsor Hotel on GarryStreet,which has been sold, displacing at least 20 low-income renters who had called it home.

Only one person still lives in the Cambridge Hotel on Pembina Highway, which has a total of 11 units no longer available for rent due to a pending demolition, according to general manager Jimmy Gresswell.

"We don't want to put someone up there and tell them, 'hey, you have to leave now,'" Gresswell said.

In 2020, the St. Regis Hotel on Smith Street was demolished after being sold.

Kate Sjoberg, Main Street Project's director of community initiatives, said losing units creates homelessness.

"We've been worried about this trend for the last 15 years," Sjoberg said. "It's a huge problem."

"It means that people who are low income who have found a solution that works for them don't have access to that solution."

In the case of the Windsor, Sjoberg said community organizations helped everyone who wanted support find transitional or permanent housing.

Main Street Project provides social supports at the 42-unit Bell Hotel on Main Street, which was previously converted into supportive housing where people stay for an average of four years.

"We need a diversity of options for everyone in the city," Sjoberg said. "People need choice and SROs are one of the choices that have worked for people."

A provincial spokesperon told CBC the department of families doesn't track the inventory of single occupancy room hotels.

"The province does consider SROs to be a form of housing if people are renting the rooms by the month and the rooms are their primary residence," the spokesperson said. "Redeveloping SROs is an option for addressing homelessness."

Retrofit planned for McLaren Hotel

Rick Lees, executive director of Equal Housing Initiative, envisions a model similar to the Bell for the McLaren Hotel.

There is a $12 million dollar plan to retrofit the seven-storey building to improve living conditions without evicting current residents.

"This is going to be 24-7 supportive housing with wraparound supports," Lees said.

He said keeping residents housed during the renovations is an important part of the plan.

"People are largely unsupported and we made the decision, we're going to step in and do the supports now even though the building's not been completely renovated," Lees said.

Afterthe retrofit, there'll be a congregate kitchen on every second floor and private washrooms in every suite.

Dwight Lavallee, 69, has lived at the McLaren for the past seven years and is supportive of the changes. He chose the McLaren because of the price.

"I don't like paying $1,200 for rent," Lavallee said. "If I don't have to, why should I?"

Tates said the place could use some paint but other than that she's satisfied.

"I keep my room messy and nobody complains, right," Tates said. "That's all I care about."