Former tenants say they were pushed out of Furby block by landlord accused of illegal College Avenue evictions

People living in a 26-unit apartment block on Winnipeg’s Furby Street — managed by a landlord who is accused of illegally evicting tenants at a different building — were told in August they had to move out, after a spokesperson says the landlord had concerns about the condition of the complex.

But one couple who lived at 583 Furby St. allege they were offered money to leave and pushed out along with nearly everyone else at the property — despite having leases and without having anywhere safe to go, they said.

The Furby block is managed by landlord Kelly Vasas, who the province alleges illegally evicted tenants from his 285 College Ave. building in July. He now faces $9,000 in fines for those evictions — penalties his lawyer Garry Sinnock says Vasas has appealed.

Less than a month after the July evictions, the Furby apartment complex — which the outreach organization St. Boniface Street Links says was filled with vulnerable people — was transferred to a company directed by Vasas, according to provincial companies and land title documents.

Alysha Wallen and Jason Podolaniuk, clients of Street Links, say they were among those who were told to leave in August.

“Couple days before the end of the month, the [new] owner said, ‘I’ll give you $1,000 if you move,'” said Podolaniuk, 46.

Several people living at the landlord’s College property during the evictions in July previously told CBC that Vasas offered them money to leave.

The couple had moved into the Furby building in 2022 with help from Street Links. They’d previously spent years living in homeless encampments.

The two were living in separate apartments when they were told to leave. Podolaniuk says he took the payout, but Wallen says she didn’t.

She alleges she was pushed out anyway, with an understanding the landlord had found her another place to stay in a nearby rooming house.

Landlord didn’t break rules: minister

Provincial company and land title documents show the 26-unit Furby Street block was transferred to a company directed by Vasas on Aug. 6, although the previous landlord told CBC the company took possession in early July.

Marc Eger, a spokesperson for Vasas, says the landlord had to quickly address the overcrowded, unhealthy and unsafe conditions after taking possession of the building, which Eger described as being long-neglected and in a “state of destruction.”

Vasas had to deal with everything from fire hazards to a lack of electricity and water in the suites, Eger, the managing director of Talon Risk Mitigation and Investigative Services, told CBC in an emailed statement.

The statement did not address the allegation tenants were offered money to move out.

Lisa Naylor, Manitoba’s minister for consumer protection, says the province’s Residential Tenancies Branch made proactive visits before the complex was cleared out to inform tenants of their rights, she said.

She says after the evictions at Vasas’s College Avenue property in July, the province was “suspicious” he might attempt doing something similar elsewhere. 

“The landlord’s behaviour was being monitored,” Naylor told CBC.

“The RTB went out of the way to take proactive steps to make sure that tenants were not treated in the way that they had been treated on College Street, and to make sure that no laws got broken by the landlord.”

Some of those steps included connecting with tenants on employment and income assistance to make sure their workers knew what was happening, Naylor said.

WATCH | Landlord charged $9K in early October for evictions: 

Podolaniuk said he recalls seeing EIA and fire department staff in August. But no one from the province asked to see his or Wallen’s leases, or informed them about their rights as tenants, he said.

The province says the Residential Tenancies Branch visited the property in mid-August, during which it determined that some people living there weren’t actually tenants, and some people had gotten eviction notices that month for not paying rent and utilities, a provincial government spokesperson said. 

The RTB concluded the landlord only told unauthorized people to leave and had their property removed, they said.

By Aug. 29, all tenants except one were gone, the province said. 

That day, Manitoba Public Health gave the landlord a health hazard order to restore electricity and water, locks and windows in most of the suites.

A few days later, Public Health deemed the units unlivable, the province said.

“At the end of the day, it was Public Health that shut the building down,” Naylor told CBC in an interview.

The landlord “didn’t actually break any rules in terms of how he approached the evictions,” she said.

‘Everybody lost all their stuff’

Wallen and Podolaniuk are now picking up the pieces at a Street Links facility.

They say their housing troubles at the Furby complex began when their electricity was shut off. 

Manitoba Hydro confirmed power was first shut off at the block on Aug. 6 — the same day it was transferred to the new owner, documents show.

Street Links executive director Marion Willis says her organization had arranged a lease for the couple with the previous owner, covered by employment and income assistance.

Their rent included electricity and water, Willis said.

Podolaniuk says he later got a suite of his own through the previous owner, which Street Links says was covered by income assistance and a provincial rent top-up.

He says in all the months he lived in this unit, he didn’t get a hydro bill until he learned the building was being sold.

After that, his water was turned off. Near the end of August, the new owner offered him $1,000 to move out, he says.

“We’re all, like, drug addicts and stuff like that, too, so of course we’re going to take the money,” Podolaniuk said.

He was given until the next morning to move out, he said.

“I didn’t have enough time to move all of my stuff, so they just threw it out. Everybody lost all their stuff. They just threw it out over the balcony.… There was a big crowd of people waiting for them to throw stuff out,” he said.

Wallen says she didn’t accept the payout. 

“I just didn’t want to go anywhere. I thought they were going to just let me stay there, but they didn’t,” the 30-year-old said.

Wallen said when the “cleaners” arrived, “they all kept saying, like, ‘Take everything … throw everything out.'”

That included telling her and Podolaniuk to leave too, she said.

“They were going to make us go through like a fire drill kind of thing,” said Wallen.

“I was hell-bent. I’m staying here.”

Eger, the landlord’s spokesperson, sent pictures he says were taken at 583 Furby on Aug. 20, showing belongings cluttering hallways and units, along with broken windows.

He pointed to the stills, pulled from a video he took, as evidence supporting the province’s ruling the suites were unlivable.

In his statement, Eger said Vasas tried his best to find safe living options for tenants elsewhere, so the Furby building could be brought up to code through extensive repairs.

Podolaniuk says a woman working with Vasas helped arrange a place for Wallen to stay in a house a few blocks away, but it was in bad shape.

Street Links program co-ordinator Michelle Wesley confirmed that house had mice and giant holes in the floor, and the bathtub, fridge and kitchen sink in Wallen’s unit didn’t work.

Wallen says she didn’t live there long.

“I just feel like I can’t trust anybody anymore,” she said.

Renters’ rights

If a renter is behind on their utilities, the Residential Tenancies Act says a landlord usually has to inform them in writing of the outstanding bill and that if unpaid, it could lead to a notice of termination, according to Legal Aid Manitoba lawyer Katrine Dilay.

If a tenant ends up getting notice, they have at least a month to move out, she said.

According to the act, if it’s the landlord who hasn’t paid utilities, the tenancies branch follows different steps, including ordering the landlord to pay the bills or redirecting rent to pay for the utilities.

Terminating a lease earlier in exchange for financial compensation isn’t unheard of, although both parties usually come to an agreement where a document is signed, Dilay said.

The province says the tenancies branch is not investigating what happened on Furby, but Naylor encourages tenants who believe their rights have been violated to come forward and contact the RTB.

Her department is working to improve education on tenants’ rights and strengthen them, she said, and looking to make legislation amendments that could include measures to ensure landlords are more proactive in keeping their buildings up to code.

But Podolaniuk says he wishes the province had made sure they’d had an adequate place to transition to.

After leaving Furby, Podolaniuk found a temporary place in what he described as a “sketchy” rooming house, but it was so bad he considered settling in a homeless encampment for the winter.

He and Wallen have recently relocated to a Street Links facility, where Wallen can access a mobile provincial addictions clinic.

Podolaniuk said neither he nor Wallen has filed a complaint with the tenancies branch, because they didn’t know they could, but he’s now considering it.

For now, though, he’s more focused on finding a long-term place to stay — indoors.