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Petition
Presented September 8, 2009
Maintenance
of Housing Accommodations for MacLeod Place, St. John's
Home
| In the House | Petitions
MR. SPEAKER: The
hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.
MR. BUTLER: Thank
you, Mr. Speaker.
It is a pleasure today to
be able to stand and present a petition on behalf of the
tenants of MacLeod Place, here in the City of St.
John’s. Seeing this is the first petition, I will read
the prayer of the petition:
WHEREAS
housing is a basic human right to which every person,
regardless of income or circumstances, is entitled; and
WHEREAS
repairs are necessary from time to time to maintain
housing accommodations for continuous and safe
occupancy; and
WHEREAS
Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation rents and
manages housing accommodations located at MacLeod Place,
in the City of St. John’s; and
WHERESAS
the persons residing at the aforementioned housing
accommodations, including seniors and others on fixed
income, are not in the position of being able to
reasonably afford the cost of maintaining their
accommodations;
WHEREUPON
the undersigned, your petitioners, humbly pray and call
upon the House of Assembly to take whatever actions are
necessary to immediately address the issue of the
maintenance of housing accommodations located at this
particular address.
Mr. Speaker, like I said,
this is a petition that has been brought forward, and I
know for a fact that those residents have been in
contact with their MHA, they have been in contact with
the minister responsible, also with officials at
Newfoundland and Labrador Housing. I know they were
promised that an engineering technician would drop by to
visit the property and it is my understanding that has
been done Friday past.
The concern that they
have is that this has taken place before and people have
come by and taken pictures but nothing after that has
happened, and what work has been done is not to a
standard that they believe that it should be once you
are spending taxpayers’ money to upgrade those
facilities.
The main concerns they
have there are safety issues, Mr. Speaker. They believe
that Newfoundland and Labrador Housing is responsible
and not their responsibility. In their petition and the
information received, they mentioned numerous items that
they feel should be taken care of with regard to the
steps to the units. Apparently, the gentleman who goes
around delivering the mail has been injured and said
that he would not be delivering mail. The eavestroughs
are dropping off the houses. They found mould in their
bathrooms and bedrooms, and Newfoundland Power even has
advised them that meters have to be replaced because
there is a strong possibility that there may be fire in
the panel boxes.
They understand, Mr.
Speaker. Those people understand fully that Newfoundland
and Labrador Housing has some 43,000 units that has to
be done, but they believe that the work, when it is to
be done, should be done up to a standard that those
issues that they are presenting today should not be a
concern.
We know today there was
an announcement made with regard to Greenwood Crescent
with regard to repairs, and that’s wonderful, which
comes under the $14.5 million fund, Building on Our
Strong Foundation. So we are just calling on behalf of
those residents, calling upon government, hopefully that
funds can be made available where they can see that the
work, the safety issues that they bring forward, can be
addressed.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. |
