New Report – Tracking Illegal Rooming Houses & Enforcement

The community and I have worked with multiple departments in the City to reduce the number of issues related to the existence of illegal rooming houses. Residents and I believe we are seeing positive changes, but we need data to support this belief and the initiatives we are implementing. In 2016, Councillor Eadie and I put forward a motion to have a report on  Annual Inspection of Converted Residential Dwellings (CRD) with Shared Facilities (Rooming Houses).  The NEW Rooming House Report has just been released and summarizes actions and results!  We’ve never had access to this kind of data before. Data enables accountability and informed decisions! This is the first annual comprehensive report that identifies:

• education effectiveness;
• 311 screening;
• number of complaints,
• inspections,
• compliances, outstanding inspections;
• and anything regarding the by-law safety issues, and recommendations.

Please ensure you look at the “Rooming house metrics – year-to-date on Potential Illegal Rooming House Enforcement Activity” data (pg’s 10-15). This data highlights the complaints, proactive enforcement investigation status and the number of properties referred to Winnipeg Fire Prevention.  In particular, note what is occurring in our areas of:

• Agassiz
• Bridgwater
• Fairfield Park
• Fort Richmond (wow!)
• Montcalm
• Richmond West
• SouthPointe and
• Waverley Heights

We’ve extracted specific South Winnipeg St Norbert data from the CITY wide data and it is very interesting.

• 55% of all City 311 complaints on illegal rooming houses have come from neighbourhoods in South Winnipeg.
• 82% of the illegal rooming houses that have been referred to Fire Prevention are from South Winnipeg.

A quick review tells me, I know full well there are FAR more rooming houses that are not reflected in this report and I have to assume people are not reporting. See the complaints that have been submitted as an example.  I’ve worked hard over these past almost 4 years to set up systems, change By Laws and educate.  BUT I can’t report every suspected rooming house – YOU must get involved.

See the Fort Richmond University Heights Neighbourhood Association website  for EXCELLENT information and SPECIFICALLY this link on How to Properly Report multiple tenants in a single family home.

We are making GREAT progress but MUST continue to report infractions!  Again – I encourage you to read the report and we will discuss in detail at a future meeting (date not yet set).

Thank you!