‘They shouldn’t be living here’: third fire hits troubled Manitoba Housing apartment block

Residents of a North End Manitoba Housing apartment block with a long history of trouble say they’re shaken after the building was hit with its third fire in eight months Friday night.

An apartment complex at 145 Powers St. was evacuated by firefighters after a fire broke out at around 7:45 p.m.

When longtime resident Sharon Markwell heard the fire alarm go off, she chalked it up to a false alarm — kids will get into the building and pull the fire alarm around once or twice a month, she said — until smoke began billowing into the hallway of her fifth-floor apartment.

“Once I realized that I could smell smoke very, very strongly, and the smoke was seeping into my room, into my apartment, I said to myself, ‘This is no false alarm. This is the real thing,’” Markwell, 64, told the Free Press Sunday.

She snatched her dog and cat, barely able to see, and screamed for help from her window. A firefighter was able to get Markwell and her two pets out of the building safely.

The City of Winnipeg’s Emergency Social Services team was at the scene and a bus was brought out for displaced residents, including Markwell, to wait in. She said that tenants of one floor of the building had to find other accommodations, but she was able to go back inside after the fire was over. One person received medical attention at the scene, according to a news release from the city.

It’s the latest in a long list of woes that have beleaguered the 12-storey high-rise in recent years, including two other fires in the building in April and May.

The property gained a reputation for being a hot spot for drug use and crime until the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority paused its home-care services inside the building, citing safety concerns for its staff, in March.

Markwell remembers those days all too well. She had been receiving treatment for severe cellulitis in her foot and had to travel to a nearby clinic to receive care — another struggle after months of dealing with increasing violence in the place she’d called home for 14 years.

She said the trouble began after newer tenants were placed in the building, some as part of the province’s Your Way Home strategy to end chronic homelessness.

“There were gang members in here that were screaming and shouting in the hallways and in the stairwell all night,” she said. “Myself and a lot of the longtime tenants who lived in the building … we couldn’t access the stairwells, we were sworn at, sometimes even threatened if we tried to use the stairwell and to go just from one floor to another.”

In May, a collective of government and non-profit representatives met with security at 145 Powers to assess the building’s needs, and in-house home-care services resumed that month. The Winnipeg Housing Rehabilitation Corp., which manages the block, said it had improved its presence of security staff, along with employees of the WHRC and N’Dinawemak.

Markwell said she’s seen an improvement in the building, including more police presence, but she remains “cautiously optimistic” and safety remains a concern.

Tenant Sandra Auger had to evacuate Friday night. She said she believes drug use was a factor in the fire, even after the changes made.

“People that smoke meth, or down, they forget about whatever … I thought it was taken care of, but I guess there’s people in their suites that smoke that,” she said.

She said some of the people who are moved into the supportive housing units of the building struggle with addiction. She’d like to see stricter requirements around receiving drug treatment before people are allowed to stay.

“Especially if their past is drug-related, they shouldn’t be living here,” she said.

— with files from Morgan Modjeski

malak.abas@winnipegfreepress.com