Like many in Port aux Basques, Maryann Keeping is feeling the crunch of the local housing shortage. The 41-year-old woman has until the end of this month to move out of her home on Charles Street.
She's not sure what she will do after that.
Making the situation more difficult is Ms. Keeping's physical disability. She was born with scoliosis and clubfeet. Her right foot was amputated several years ago, and her prosthesis is only a temporary measure than is painful to wear. She uses a wheelchair to get around her home.
Unable to work due to her health issues and relying on social assistance, Ms. Keeping wants nothing more than a stable place to live.
The home she currently rents on Charles Street is less than ideal for her. The two-storey house has only one bathroom upstairs. She has to crawl up the stairs on her hands and knees to get to a second wheelchair upstairs.
"A lot of the time I'm sleeping downstairs now," she said.
Ms. Keeping lives in the home with her dog, Cuddles. She took the building because it was the only one available just over a year ago when her former rental home was sold.
For five years, Ms. Keeping rented a one-storey home on Clement Crescent, just across the road from her mother, Martha. After she started renting that home, the landlord was able to get a $5,000 grant to make the home wheelchair accessible. As part of that grant, the landlord had to sign a contract promising not to sell the home for five years.
Ms. Keeping said as soon as the contract was up, the house was for sale again.
"The government will fix up a home if I can find one to rent. But finding one is the problem," she said.
Ideally, she would like to rent-to-own a home with help from the government. She figures if she can find a stable place to live, she could eventually own the home and occasionally have maintenance work done on it through grants. She has been unable to find a program that would allow her to do that.
She does not want to leave her family support in Port aux Basques. Ms. Keeping had heard that no Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation units in the area were wheelchair accessible, so she did not bother applying there.
Ms. Keeping said she does not want to be a burden to her mother or her daughter, who is attending school in Halifax. She wants help from the government so she can help herself.
"I should have a home for my daughter to come home to," said Ms. Keeping.
Burgeo-La Poile MHA Kelvin Parsons said he is aware of Ms. Keeping's situation and he is working on several fronts to help her find a solution.
Mr. Parsons confirmed there are no wheelchair accessible units owned by the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation in the Port aux Basques area. He said all those units are occupied anyway.
Mr. Parsons has assurances from the Department of Human Resources, Labour and Employment that if nothing else, they can put Ms. Keeping up in a hotel room until a rental unit opens up.
He said housing is only available from two sectors - the public and the private. While the private sector cannot be forced to do anything, it is up to the public sector to ensure the needs of people such as Ms. Keeping are met.
Jenny Bowring, spokesperson for the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, said that while the units in Port aux Basques may not be entirely wheelchair accessible, she would encourage Ms. Keeping to put in an application with the Crown corporation.
"In terms of us doing something for her, we would be more than willing. There's numerous options we could look at but for whatever reason she's been told not to apply to us," she said.
"I can't guarantee there's anything we would be able to do quickly, but we have to know what the situation is," she said.
There are 24 housing units in the Port aux Basques area, and all have stairs. Ms. Bowring said it is possible that one of those could be modified to suit the accessibility needs of a client.
Failing that, the corporation would be prepared to work with someone in the private sector to come up with a unit that would meet Ms. Keeping's needs.
She said the majority of the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation's 5,500 units are 35 to 50 years old, and building wheelchair accessible units at that time was simply not a priority.
She said today, the corporation has a greater commitment to modifying current properties to make them more accessible. Ten per cent of new units built under the Federal-Provincial Housing Initiative must be meet accessibility criteria. Ms. Bowring said 893 units province-wide were built under that program since 2004, meaning 89 to 90 are fully wheelchair accessible.
reporter@gulfnews.ca
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