Grim discovery postpones announcement on future of controversial inner-city housing complex

A long-awaited housing announcement involving a once-promising core-area housing complex shuttered out of safety concerns after years of neglect and criminal behaviour was called off at the last minute Friday after a body was discovered inside.

Housing Minister Bernadette Smith, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine and Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs representatives were scheduled to begin the event at Centre Village on Balmoral Street at 9 a.m.

It had to be cancelled when Winnipeg Police Service officers arrived at the Manitoba Housing apartment complex at about 8:30, responding to a report of a body inside, spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said, adding the person appeared to be a male and the death is believed to have been medical matter, not a criminal one.

“I’m not seeing anything… suspicious in nature,” he said, offering no other details.

Police and a Manitoba Housing staffer could be seen milling about, waiting for forensics investigators and officials from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to arrive. Just before 10 a.m., uniformed officers cut a chain to allow an investigator into the fenced-off complex.

Smith said in a statement she would not comment, out of respect for the family of the deceased and Manitoba Housing staff.

The 25-unit infill project won awards for its offbeat architectural design when it opened in 2010, but the new Canadians for whom it was built, and others, criticized the cramped living spaces and exterior safety concerns.

It was boarded up in 2022, just 10 years after it opened, and abandoned by the province. In the time since, break-ins, squatting, drug use and frequent police visits have become a constant for the people who live nearby.

On Friday, trash littered the complex, which is made of square white stucco boxes with orange window frames organized around internal courtyards and passageways. Many of the windows, which were boarded with plywood, had been smashed.

Every time nearby homeowner Jason Keenan passes Centre Village, he wonders if it would take a tragedy for the province to take action. After hearing of the death behind its boarded-up walls, he said he’s still wondering.

“It was only a matter of time. We knew it was going to happen,” he said. “It was either that or it was going to burn to the ground.”

He’s lived opposite Centre Village for eight years, and has spent the past two watching constant break-ins, drug use, theft and vandalism go on unabated. Manitoba Housing stepped in to secure the gate in the past year, but the measure was inadequate.

“When you’re leaving a property vacant for that long, there’s nothing you can do, because people know nobody’s there. They’re just going to go,” he said.

“There’s nobody here, (they) can sit (there) and work on getting into the building for hours, nobody checks on it. Security doesn’t drive by, Manitoba Housing says they do, but they don’t.”

The provincial housing department issued a request for expressions of interest last April — 16 months after boarding up the property — seeking non-profits, Indigenous organizations and other levels of government interested in developing social housing, either through redeveloping the current structure or demolishing it to start anew.

A provincial spokesman said last month that plans were being worked on behind the scenes, and the housing minister suggested an update on the property’s future was near.

Manitoba Housing has offered to sell the property for $1, with priority given to Indigenous organizations and new construction projects. A successful application would include a minimum of 25 subsidized social-housing units.

The department put up $2.2 million in capital funding toward the project, following a 2019 field condition assessment that estimated repairs to the complex could cost up to $1.8 million.

Keenan has reached out Manitoba Housing and his city councillor about Centre Village over the years. On Friday, he said the lack of action wouldn’t be tolerated in wealthier parts of the city.

“Everything goes unheard in this neighborhood,” he said. “We’ve gotten used to it.”

— with files from Malak Abas

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca