Atira backs ending funding to SROs after Winters Hotel fire inquest

The society that operated the Vancouver supportive housing building where a fire killed two people in 2022 says it fully supports the recommendations from a coroner’s inquest.

The recommendations include stopping public funding for single-room occupancy hotels in privately owned buildings, something the Atira Women’s Resource Society says it’s backs.

Atira Interim CEO Catherine Roome tells CityNews fire safety in the society’s buildings is a serious problem that can’t be solved through investment.

“SROs, as 100-year-old buildings, just to get the level of safety to what we need, that is not the answer. What we need is purpose-built, supportive housing for these people,” Roome said Tuesday.

“The issue with all the 100-year-old SROs, and that includes the Winters residence, is these are buildings that are very, very difficult to maintain and repair, and the level of investment that housing operators are able to give, given our budgets, just does not give appropriate life safety. And the jury found that.”

“There’s just no level of investment that is going to make the marginalized folks who are in these buildings be in a safe environment. It’s time that we phase-out the SROs,” Roome added.

She says the society is “extremely grateful to the jury,” adding the recommendations made “speak very directly to what it is that we need to do to provide safe, supportive housing for our most marginalized citizens.”

Atira says it has been working to “improve safety in all the buildings that house our tenants,” and to ensure staff have training and the resources needed should there be “another life-threatening emergency.”

Roome adds Atira has worked over the last six months “to change the organization and to become one of the best — if not the leading — operator of low-barrier, Housing to Hope services.”

However, she says the organization hopes BC Housing also makes the same changes and meets Atira “half way.”

In a statement Tuesday, Atira said it was “becoming increasingly clear that no reasonable investment in these buildings will ensure the health and safety of staff and tenants.”

“We look forward to a future of Housing to Hope where long-term solutions such as purpose-built housing is considered and prioritized by BC Housing,” the society explained, adding it’s now up to the “government to fund supportive social housing to the level that guarantees safety.”

The Winters Hotel is operated by Atira with funding from BC Housing, but owned by Peter Plett.

About 70 tenants lived in the building when lit candles left on a bed started a fire on April 11, 2022, sweeping through the building. The fire killed Mary Ann Garlow and Dennis Guay, whose bodies were found in the rubble more than a week after the blaze.

Fire safety expert weighs in

Dr. Felix Wiesner, assistant professor in the faculty of Forestry at UBC, says the recommendations from the inquest are “meaningful and good.” However, he feels it’s too simple to blame what happened on the age of the building.

While he says that can certainly contribute to safety issues, other factors must also be considered.

“Even if you have a modern building, we also need to address the operational concerns that were raised by the coroner. You could have the most modern building, purpose built, but if you don’t address the issues that were here with sprinklers not functioning, fire extinguishers being out, fire alarms not reaching the occupants, then you may have the same outcome,” he told CityNews.

“If doors are being left propped open, if there’s debris in the escape corridors or stairs, if the sprinklers don’t work, if the alarm system doesn’t work, you could also see deaths from a fire in a more modern building.”

Wiesner says it appears Atira is taking some accountability, though he feels the society could have outlined more concrete steps. However, he says this is all part of a bigger issue around SROs in the city.

“These are, essentially, classified as hotels but, really, the occupants have very complex challenges in case of an evacuation. And I think that’s one thing that contributed to at least one of the deaths in this fire. The alarm system was insufficient to alert the occupant, to evacuate the building,” he explained.