Valley View Towers Senior's Legal Defense Fund

Hi, my name is Valerie Ryan.

I am fundraising for the past, present and future tenants of Valleyview Tower II, as well as for everyone in the Battlefords District that has been affected and injured by the Battlefords Housing Authority failure to provide senior tenants of Valleyview Towers their human rights to quiet enjoyment of their residences. The office of Residential Tenancies has found the seniors at the Towers experience “terror and trauma” by the living conditions at Valley View Towers. The decision can be found at https://www.canlii.org/en/sk/skort/doc/2021/2021skort2255/2021skort2255.html?autocompleteStr=214945&autocompletePos=1

 

Valley View Towners I & II were built in the early 1980s with the purpose that the buildings be occupied by seniors. At the time, they were something of pride; not only for the Battlefords and district, but for the entire province of Saskatchewan and the country as a whole. All three levels of government invested heavily in these beautiful facilities.

The apartments provided low-income seniors a safe and secure and beautiful place to live and the last Board of Directors boasted "they were going to make the Battlefords Housing Authority the best housing authority in the Province of Saskatchewan". When the housing authority offices were downstairs in Tower II, there was even a sign in the office window which said, "This office makes this place a safe place to live".

The sign disappeared several years ago, and since then the Valleyview Towers have not been providing seniors a safe, secure and beautiful place to live, but the Management allowed the suites to be occupied by a cross section of persons which resulted in seniors being negatively affected by the party lifestyle of the various tenants.

In the past three years, this housing authority has turned from being an advocate for the poor, disadvantaged and elderly, to putting the safety and security of the senior residents at risk of physical and frightening events from the party lifestyles of the various tenants. The North Battleford Housing Authority has been sued from a host of various legal suits from lost wrongful dismissal cases, to a skyrocketing numbers of Office of Residential Tenancies (ORT) cases, to now, appealing cases into the Court of Queens Bench when the ORT finds the Housing Authority breached the tenants’ rights to quiet enjoyment of their homes.

It is extremely hard for an elderly person on a subsistence level fixed-income to come up with the fifty dollars it costs me to file an ORT Application; yet alone to find the thousands of dollars it takes to hire a lawyer to fight the government’s Regina law firm to enforce the ORT’s decisions. The Housing Authority would rather appeal than accept the ORT’s decisions and make lasting policy decisions that protect their senior residents rather than placing vulnerable seniors at risk of physical, mental and emotional harm.

The ORT has decided that the Battlefords Housing Authority has breached the senior tenant’s ability to use their residence in an ordinary lawful way and that the seniors have experienced terror and trauma by the living conditions at the Valleyview Towers. Even though the Housing Authority is in breach of senior’s rights to a safe home, the management refuses to make lasting policy changes to the Towers.

I am asking everyone who cares about justice, compassion, fair-play and community to dig into your pockets and help. Those of us living in social housing simply don’t have the financial resources we need to preserve the little bit of independence and dignity that we still desperately hang onto.

Your help - any amount of help - would be greatly appreciated.

We call our initiative “Valley View Towers, Senior’s Legal Defence Fund”