'I'm going to be on the street': Tenants evacuated from unsafe downtown building

Approximately 19 tenants are facing the very real prospect of living on the streets after their downtown apartment building was deemed unsafe to live in by the City of Sault Ste. Marie this week. 

The tenants — many of them living on fixed incomes — were evacuated from 138 East Street July 3 after an Unsafe Order was issued for the building, citing concerns over corrosion of the structural steel frame, a leaking roof and water damage in several areas.  

Angela England is one of those displaced tenants. She says people were evacuated from the 23-unit building Wednesday after water poured through an unfinished roof repair directly into the electrical panel, prompting PUC to cut off power to the building. Tenants have been provided with hotel accommodations and food by the Red Cross, but that assistance will come to an abrupt end on Saturday.  

“I’m trying not to think about it, because I’m not going to be able to keep it together. I’m going to be on the street,” England told SooToday Friday. “There is nothing available — I’ve been looking everywhere.” 

England says representatives with Social Services and the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) were following up with displaced tenants Friday morning. A CMHA employee referred SooToday to Social Services, which did not respond to a request for comment.  

England was informed by a Social Services employee that the wait list for a rental subsidy known as the Portable Housing Benefit is two to three years long, while the wait list for social housing is about five years. For tenants at 138 East Street who rely upon disability payments, like England, the options for housing are pretty much non-existent for them.    

“There’s no relief. There’s going to be nothing for people — they’re going to be on the street,” she said. “It’s just bizarre.”   

Unidentified individuals were hauling people’s personal belongings out of 138 East Street and placing them into pickup trucks as heavy rainfall came down Friday afternoon. England, like many other tenants, had to get their pets out of the now-dilapidated building on top of removing all of their worldly possessions. 

“It’s going to be hard enough for a lot of these residents to find a place off the street to live — but a lot of them have pets, which might not sound like a big deal. But for a lot of disabled people their pets are their service animals,” she said. “They won’t make it without them — they’re all they have in the universe.”

Provincial land registry records retrieved by SooToday show that Asimco Textiles Inc., a company based in New Lowell, Ont., west of Barrie, purchased the building in March 2013 for $260,000. Asimco Textiles Inc. director Asim Bhatti did not respond to a request for comment made by SooToday Friday. 

The downtown apartment building made headlines in June 2023 when SooToday revealed that Asimco Textiles was hammered with $95,000 in fines after being found guilty of eight Ontario Fire Code offences. Sault Ste. Marie Fire Services did not name the property owner when it issued a news release about the Ontario Fire Code fines at the time. 

An Unsafe Order was issued at 645/647 Queen Street East — another property owned by Asimco Textiles Inc. — after a massive fire decimated the upper floor of the building in May. That building is now slated for demolition.      

Freddie Pozzebon, the city’s chief building official, told SooToday the municipality is “currently pursuing actions under the Unsafe Order,” slapped on 138 East Street earlier this week, but did not elaborate.

The Unsafe Order compels the owner to hire an engineer to conduct a further inspection and provide a structural report concerning the work that needs to be done in order to remedy the unsafe condition. Depending on what the engineer concludes, the owner must obtain the necessary permits to have the building either repaired or demolished. 

A structural report on 138 East Street from a professional engineer was supposed to be submitted to the City by noon today as part of the Unsafe Order.