Flood victims trapped in transient lifestyle
Great Plains housing complex closes this week
I just wonder if there is an end in sight
Anthony Hinojosa packed up his belongings and moved for the 10th time in seven months over the weekend after receiving an eviction order from his latest landlord, the provincial government.
Hinojosa, who was among dozens of flood victims living in a temporary housing community due to close this Friday, was forced into a transient lifestyle after the disaster took his Mission house and his home-based photography business.
After staying with friends, in hotel rooms and, for the past three months, in the Great Plains temporary neighbourhood in southeast Calgary, he moved over the weekend to more makeshift housing north of High River.
“It feels like this temporary stage just keeps dragging on,” said Hinojosa, who has been working odd jobs as he attempts to get back on his feet. “Sometimes I just wonder if there is an end in sight. You really can’t call a place home for a short while.”
Great Plains, a community of trailers, was designed to help flood victims rebuild their lives, with plans to stay open for about six months. It’s closing roughly three months early due to a lack of demand but some of its residents will remain uprooted.
Of 28 households in the community, six — including Hinojosa — will move to the Saddlebrook camp, another temporary community for flood victims, north of High River. Others will move into subsidized housing or have found their own accommodations. As of last week, two households had not found places to live, a week before they were set to be evicted from Great Plains.
The past couple weeks have been a period of upheaval for many of the community’s residents who have scrambled to find places to stay. The province had said in early January that the community would be closed in up to 60 days. Later in the month residents learned they had to be out by Jan. 31.
Just a few days ago, Jeff McIntyre was worried he would soon be homeless after receiving the evic- tion order. He said last week he was resigned to the notion that “we’re just the same as everyone else on the street, all of a sudden.”
Today, for the first time in months, he hopes to put an end to the transient lifestyle, and the constant worries about his future, that last June’s flood forced upon him, having secured a subsidized apartment downtown.
“When you get stressed out going through this turmoil of finding a place to live and being broke, it’s cool to know that this is an option so I can actually put my feet on the ground,” McIntyre said.
Great Plains residents, like McIntyre, who qualified for social housing will sign fixed-term leases but they will be allowed to stay as long as they remain good tenants and continue to satisfy the criteria for the program, including income levels, said Darren Nimegeers, spokesman for Calgary Housing Company.
Thomas Waite and his wife Joy Pfeifer moved to Saddlebrook on Saturday, their fifth move since leaving their High Riverhome,which has been difficult for Pfeifer, who suffers from multiple sclerosis.
Waite said he doesn’t know when they will return to their High River home, though “the end of the tunnel has a peephole in it” after contractors installed a furnace, for now the only furnishing in the home.
In Saddlebrook, the empty nesters will be one step closer to home. Waite said he has no complaints about the temporary lodging in Calgary and the one awaiting them in High River. Staff have been careful to understand Pfeifer’s illness and accommodate her where possible, he said.
“There’s no reason for me to be upset. You just got to go with it,” he said.
Other Great Plains tenants have been reluctant to speak publicly about life in the camp and what lies ahead after eviction day, fearing retribution from the province, which they are relying on to find places to live. A provincial spokesman dismissed these worries, however, saying officials review only a tenant’s eligibility for housing programs, not their public comments.
Surrounded by chain link fence,
ANTHONY HINOJOSA
Great Plains lies in an industrial district, across the street from a massive warehouse. A brightly coloured jungle gym is plunked in the middle of corridors of trailers.
Built to accommodate 700 residents, the community had been home to 100 at its peak, later sliding to 45 tenants, or 28 households.
The full cost of the makeshift neighbourhood will not be known until the province winds up its contract with Canada North, but spokesman Cam Traynor estimates that operating the community costs an average of $200 per person each day.
The price tag does not include costs for the trailers, which the province is renting from the private provider, who will use them for another purpose after the site is decommissioned, Traynor said.
Life on these grounds has been far from normal. Residents must show their badges to guards as they come and go, and they have to sign a sheet of paper before eating at the dining hall. Security patrols are a routine sight.
According to the province, the security measures are meant to provide residents with safety, peace and quiet.
Greg Tymchyna, who moved to Great Plains with his family of six in October, said he and his wife had to go through great lengths just to have a date night. They had to provide supervisors with 72 hours’ notice to have a babysitter stay with the children after visiting hours ended.
Still, Tymchyna is grateful to have had a roof over his head since the fall. He said government officials “went out of their way” to make sure that homeless Albertans were cared for when they had nowhere else to turn after the flood. But he said this welcome appears to have been short-lived.
“We heard right from the get-go that no Albertan would be left behind,” said Tymchyna, whose family is moving to Grand Prairie, where they will live in housing provided by a friend and former employer.
The family is into arbitration with the provincial government to seek more than the $9,000 they were given under Alberta’s disaster recovery program.
“Well, there’s a whole bunch of Albertans being left behind and forgotten. We’re being pushed out and forgotten.”