Moving day at the Balmoral
Former tenant hopes new accommodation will mean ‘a fresh start’
Immediately after Michael Hurlburt moved into the Balmoral Hotel a little over two years ago, he started trying to find a way to move out.
Hurlburt finally left the Balmoral to move into a new home Monday, along with about 150 other residents of the Downtown Eastside single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotel. The mass relocation followed an evacuation order 10 days earlier from the City of Vancouver, citing “imminent danger” and chronic problems in the century-old building, one of several SROs and other properties owned by the Sahota family.
Monday’s move-out deadline brought a busy procession along the sidewalk outside the hotel: movers carrying furniture, cops chatting amiably with DTES residents, news cameras, representatives from B.C. Housing, the city, the newly formed Vancouver Tenants Union and others.
Hurlburt, 38, stood for hours in line outside the hotel with dozens of other tenants waiting to pick up compensation cheques they had been promised.
Over the last three days, Balmoral residents received notices outlining details of the compensation packages, which also stated: “This in no way affects your standing in any class-action suit that may now be before the courts.”
Two proposed class-action lawsuits are before the courts involving Sahota-owned properties, the Balmoral and the Regent.
Pal Sahota, a director of the company that owns the Balmoral, briefly emerged from the hotel Monday to talk to a mover.
When a Postmedia reporter approached and identified himself to Sahota, he waved him away and re-entered the building.
The city and B.C. Housing have worked to find new homes for displaced Balmoral residents. But advocates want to see more. The Carnegie Community Action Project released a statement Monday “calling on the city to prove that it has learned from the Balmoral Hotel fiasco ... The city has allowed several rental properties to deteriorate to the extent that tenants have to be evicted.”
Hurlburt learned of his new home Sunday, when an outreach worker told him he could move into a room at a nearby SRO, which is managed by a non-profit organization and appeared to be in far better shape than the Balmoral or other Sahota-owned buildings.
Hurlburt was relieved, he said, to learn he could bring his pit-bullbulldog Peanut to the new home, adding: “I’ll live on the street before I give her up.”
After collecting his cheque, Hurlburt walked with Peanut to their new home. Housing advocates and building management requested Postmedia refrain from publishing the name of the SRO where Hurlburt and other Balmoral residents are moving, out of consideration for their privacy.
Sitting in his new, clean, empty room Monday, Hurlburt said: “It’s a thousand times better here. It feels like a total fresh start, a new beginning.”
Hurlburt, a former roofer, hoped to use the move as a chance to stop using heroin and start holding down a regular job again.
“A fresh place to live, it helps. It’s a lot better than the Balmoral,” he said.
“There was no way I was quitting heroin at that place. But here, I have hope here.”