THUNDER BAY – The electric and gas bill may be paid, staving off the Aug. 18 cutoff date at Vicker’s Manor, but it wasn’t just the utilities that weren’t getting paid.
According to Teresa Benwell, a former maintenance worker, the serving staff walked off the job on Saturday.
Currently, there is a total of three staff members left to help the 24 remaining residents living in the building. Eighteen of those residents are on the food-assistance program, Benwell said.
She has been filling in since Saturday to ensure those remaining residents get fed.
Newswatch also spoke to current staff members, who wished to remain anonymous, for fear of being in breach of contract, who said they too have not been paid since June 26.
Benwell was permitted by the staff to speak on their behalf.
“There’s been no direction from any city official, government official, the owner, nothing, to the point where the staff haven’t even been paid in over a month. Like all the servers quit; me, myself, I’m here twice a day serving in the dining room, the people, their meals because there’s nobody to serve,” Benwell told Newswatch in an interview. “The cooks are coming in out of the goodness of their heart. They’re volunteering their time and their expertise to come in here and still cook and provide for the citizens.”
She says some of the servers were youths who had put in the last month of their time and didn’t get paid.
“It was always, from what my understanding was, we’re working on it. You’ll get paid tomorrow, you’ll get paid on Friday, you’ll get paid tomorrow and tomorrow never came. So, with being a young person, I completely understand nobody wants to work for free,” Benwell said.
She also said SMS Property Trust Inc., the building’s owner, has allegedly not paid GFL to pick up the garbage, leaving three bins spilling over onto the ground.
The sump pump in the subbasement has also stopped working and a total of three sump pumps appear to be in a state of disrepair, set behind sandbags in an attempt to keep water from pouring into the basement.
It’s an ongong problem, Benwell said.
“There’s a problem with flooding in the basement. There’s the garbage. The GFL people haven’t been paid. The garbage is overflowing, and the birds are putting it all over. That, to me, is unsanitary. It’s unhealthy. We still have PSWs and CSI workers. They’re carrying the garbage out there daily, and they’re walking through that and approaching those bins where there could be rodents, and it’s wrong,” Benwell said.
Since the utilities are no longer an issue for the time being, she says, some residents are taking that as a sign they don’t need to move out of the building.
However, Benwell is skeptical.
“They need some type of direction. They need direction to say, hey, like what’s going on after the 18th? Is the 20th going to come? Is a lock going on the door?” she said. “They need to know: can they stay? Do they have to leave? It’s a sad situation.”
A GoFundMe has been put on pause, which is locked at just over $15,000, according to Benwell.
She said she has dipped into the fund to buy specifically fruit and produce, but also other household items that residents need.
Meanwhile, the community has still been showing up to offer assistance, including Wayland Bar and Grill, Arnikko’s Pizzeria, Little Caesars, and Brain Injury Services of Northern Ontario.
“We would just like to thank everybody that has been a part of this, and that has been helping out the seniors and stepping up and not the ones that have just come for a photo op and a vote,” Benwell said.
Newswatch has reached out to SMS Property Trust Inc. for comment and has not received a response at the time of publication.
