New Valleyview Tower residents have been causing problems, some seniors are alleging.
The News-Optimist has received a letter from the adult children of a resident of Valleyview Towers. According to the letter, more and more young people have moved into Valleyview Towers in the past year.
Valleyview Towers were built in the 1980s as seniors’ facilities. They are listed as “Senior Housing Units” on the Battlefords Housing Authority’s website, but a former board member told the News-Optimist the website could be outdated.
The letter to the News-Optimist makes a number of allegations regarding the behaviour of some new tenants, including drunkenness, fighting, partying, indoor smoking and visitors using the laundry facilities.
Police have been called over and over again, it states.
The letter alleges the housing authority management seems uninterested and “refuses” to take corrective action for the behaviour.
“Surely somewhere more suitable [to house the tenants] could be found than a seniors home filled with mostly single elderly widows,” the letter states.
According to an email from the Ministry of Social Services, the Battlefords Housing Authority reached out to Saskatchewan Housing Corporation for tenant support.
Saskatchewan Housing Corporation staff members travel to meet with housing authorities and conduct tenant interviews if problems arise. Valleyview Towers residents underwent such a process.
According to a letter Battlefords Housing Authority General Manager Denis Lavertu presented to tenants, Jerry Nekrasoff of the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation conducted interviews with tenants. Tenants agreed to establishing a code of conduct, the letter states, along with a common area use policy and lobby loitering rules.
The letter from Lavertu also included nomination forms for tenants to sit on a tenant association.
Tenants, meanwhile, circulated a petition to the Ministry of Social Services, asking for the building to be reinstated as a seniors-only building.
As to why people on social services are in Valleyview Towers, the government email responded “excluding Saskatoon and Regina, we have provided some further flexibility to housing authorities regarding these units.”
“It’s important that people in North Battleford in housing need have access to social housing,” the government email says.
Lavertu did not respond to multiple requests for comment in time for publication of this story, nor did Battlefords Housing Authority chair Ken Holliday.
Leona Boehm, acting tenant relations manager of the Battlefords Housing Authority, directed the News-Optimist to contact the Ministry of Social Services after the News-Optimist had already received a statement from the ministry.
According to the letter, tenants said “you can’t put all these young rowdies in with a building full of seniors without causing problems.”
