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LETTER: Thank you for bringing attention to situation at Sunset Manor in Williams Lake

Editor;
31646190_web1_230119-WLT-Sunset-Manor_4
The view from the street of Cariboo Sunset Manor in Westridge as renovation work began in the summer continues. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)

Editor;

Thank you very much for writing your recent article about Cariboo Sunset Manor.

Last November, I felt sick, and was then relieved when I moved my sister out of that building.

From May 2022 onward, Cariboo Sunset Manor became a disaster. I became aware of this because my sister, who had lived there for two years, was unwell. Like many others in the building, she was unable to advocate for herself.

No one should endure what the residents of that building have put up with.

In my sister’s case, like many others in the building, her balcony was removed in May 2022, and she had very little daylight until the time she left in November, because the entire building was sheeted and scaffolded.

For months on end, she could not open her windows, she suffered unannounced power cuts and water shut-offs, she often had unscheduled workers enter her apartment, she breathed enormous amounts of dust, and any work done inside her apartment was left half-finished and carried out sporadically and unpredictably.

The noise was so extreme we could not talk in her apartment at times, or even talk on the telephone, and outside we had to tread carefully through constant mess, eternally half-finished work, innumerable trip hazards.

The mess, both indoors and out, was indescribable, as was the noise. Friends visiting my sister were even more shocked than I was.

Each time I was at the building, between May and November, I thought it could not get worse. On each visit, it became worse. I hate to think of what has happened since.

This would never, ever, happen if the residents were not elderly, on low income, and fearful of losing their housing.

I believe the people still living in Cariboo Sunset Manor deserve an apology, and a retroactive rent reduction, at the very least, from BC Housing.

What has been allowed to happen there is a clear abuse of older, lower income people, who are highly vulnerable regarding housing, and are enduring unacceptable living conditions, during an extremely ill-managed renovation.

Is this how we wish to treat our vulnerable elderly population? It is a shame on all of us.

My sister is fortunate. She got out of there.

What of those people who remain?

Again, thank you for drawing attention to this situation.

Margaret Horsfield

Victoria, BC.