Home should be a haven but illegal rooming houses threaten that

Dorothy said it best: "There's no place like home."

It's true.

For better or worse, your home is your haven. It's the place where you feel safe, hopefully. You take your surroundings for granted, and it's only when there's a major change that you perk up and see it with fresh eyes.

That's what happened recently to my best friend, who owns a home near the University of Manitoba.

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In the years since she and her husband bought their place, the number of rooming houses has mushroomed faster than Donald Trump memes on the internet.

What used to be a handful of unkempt properties with weedy lawns and peeling paint has grown to approximately a quarter of the neighbourhood. The issue isn't just cosmetic.

There are real consequences to crabgrass and missing shingles. The fact is that the more neglected properties there are, the worse the entire neighbourhood looks.Property values start to slide, potential buyers shy away from living in an area that looks like it's on the decline and real estate agents flood the vicinity with flyers urging people to sell.

Homes go up for sale, investors move in and scoop up any deals. The next thing you know, ads show up on Kijiji showing rooms for rent.

Unwitting boardersthe majority international students desperate for a cheap place to staymove in. As a result, the entire feel of the neighbourhood changes.

Since many of these rooming houses are filled with boarders who tend to be transient, residents don't develop relationships with them.

Flowers disappear, weeds takeover

The sense of community is the first casualty, followed by a growing sense of fear on the part of residents that their stomping grounds are changing in a way they can't control. A few years ago, I saw firsthand the consequences of turning a home into a rooming house.

A friend and her family lived in a two-storey side-by-side, where the lawn was neatly kept, the flower beds were tended and the apple tree in the front yard was hung with homemade birdhouses.

It wasn't fancy, but it was obvious to anyone that the people who lived there actually cared about the place. My friend's husband found a job out of province and the soldsign went up on the lawn.

Before I knew it, I was watching an ever-changing roster of cars parked behind the house. The picture window was bisected by drywall. (Call me crazy, but I don't reallythink many families would decide to erect a wall in the middle of their living room.)

The lawn grew long and weedy. The next spring, the flower beds stayed empty.

A section of the fence fell over, only to be propped up with a two-by-four for the next few months.

The whole place fairly screamed "no one cares." What was once a well-kept home is now a sad yet potent reminder of what happens when rooming houses replace homes.

With its relatively low-priced properties, Winnipeg is more vulnerable than other cities to being overrun with rooming houses.

What Corydon can teach us

This already happened in the Corydon area over 20 years ago, before private citizens thankfully decided to invest their time, talent and money in taking neglected properties and returning them to their former status as single-family dwellings.

The city then made the fortuitous decision to rezone properties back to residential single family (R1) from residential two-family (R2), which was absolutely crucial in building confidence in the future of the Corydon area.

Without a sense of security, people aren't willing to commit to a neighbourhood, either socially or financially. And without that commitment, a neighbourhood has as much chance of surviving long-term as Britney's latest comeback. Yeah. That long.

By the looks of the neighbourhood, Fort Richmond is at its tipping point. Longtime residents are moving out, leaving even more gaps in the landscape.

Others are looking at their options in areas that aren't swimming in rooming houses filled with university students.

I can't say that I blame them, considering your home is one of the biggest investments you will ever make.

Speaking of investments, I'm not targeting those who can afford to buy properties expressly for the purpose of transforming them into revenue streams.

I don't begrudge anyone trying to make an honest dollar, but it needs to be just that: honest. Estimates put the number of illegal rooming houses in the University of Manitoba area at around 100, with some housing as many as 10 people.

Not only are these tenants missing out on getting to know a real Canadian neighbourhood, their lives are in jeopardy, as these places usually don't meet fire code safety standards.

Winnipeg needs to take care of its citizens and shut down illegal rooming houses before a tragedy occurs. I've always thought that's what a community does: take care of its own.

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