Public housing tenant with mouldy basement questions how N.S. plans to maintain new units
CBC
When Amilia Williams goes into the basement of her home for more than a few minutes, she wears personal protective equipment.
The basement of her public housing unit on Romans Avenue in Halifax floods regularly, and she said her possessions are covered in mould that permeates the home.
She said her children are often sick, and she has cleaned mould spores out of her young granddaughter's nose.
Those problems have led Williams to a yearlong battle with the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency, a Crown corporation that manages the province's government-owned public housing units.
"I know a lot of my neighbours are terrified to say anything," she said. "Me, I don't care anymore. I am done ... I didn't build this place. I didn't cause the leaks."
Williams's unit isn't the only one in disrepair. According to numbers from the Nova Scotia Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, 102 of the 11,202 public housing units in the province have been vacant longer than the standard three-month turnover period between tenants, down from 142 last year.
Those units could be chronically vacant because of the wait for accessibility upgrades or required maintenance and restoration.
But with the Nova Scotia government's recent announcement that it plans, for the first time in 30 years, to invest in 222 new public housing units, some are wondering if those units will be maintained more effectively than the existing stock.
"It'll be great to actually see that they build public housing," Williams said. "But now my big question is who's going to maintain them? Are they actually going to take care of them? Because there's no point in building them if they're not going to take care of the property properly."
Williams's unit first flooded in September 2022 after post-tropical storm Fiona tore through Nova Scotia. She said it took her four days to clear water from her basement.
But in the months to follow, it wasn't dry for long. The basement flooded repeatedly as she asked the public housing agency for help in what she calls a "never-ending battle."
"It's just like getting hit in the face and it smells like wet moss or wet rotting wood and it's just getting out of hand," she said.
Williams said maintenance workers did bring her industrial fans and a dehumidifier, but they told her it looks like the footings of the building are coming away from the foundation, which is a costly repair.
In late September, she was told her basement would be fixed in December — 15 months after the first flood.