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Winnipeg mayoral candidates promised Friday to speed up demolition of derelict housing, create supportive housing for people with addictions and prevent councillors from spending money on themselves.
Kevin Klein, the former city councillor and Progressive Conservative MLA, said if he’s elected on Oct. 28, he would ensure all demolitions are approved within 15 days of an application. He would also ask the province to change legislation to allow the city to seize derelict properties more quickly, he said.
Klein said the city has taken action to seize 48 properties over the last four years but has not taken title to any of them.
“As your mayor, I will treat every vacant building as a risk, as a file that must be closed, repaired, reoccupied, rebuilt or taken down,” he said in front of a fire-damaged vacant building on Alexander Street in the Weston neighbourhood.
Klein also said he would waive the fee for demolitions if owners rebuild on the vacant property. He said the city would recoup the money through savings from fewer firefighting responses to burning vacant homes.
Klein said he would also increase fees imposed on owners of vacant buildings.
Vogiatzakis promises supportive housing
Candidate Mike Vogiatzakis said if he’s elected, the city will cover 25 per cent of the capital cost of an $8.75-million, 100-unit supportive housing facility for people without homes and in need of addictions treatment.
The funeral home director said the facility would be located in a neighbourhood without existing residential homes and would be secure. Residents would be allowed to leave once they finish treatment or if they choose to quit treatment, Vogiatzakis said.
Mike Vogiatzakis promised Friday to build a 100-unit supportive housing facility for people with addictions if he’s elected. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)
“We’re going to deal with homelessness, we’re going to deal with addictions, we’re going to deal with mental health, we’re going to deal with financial issues. We’re going to deal with every problem that a person has that has them on the street,” he said at a news conference in the lobby of the Detox Centre of Manitoba, in the Daniel McIntyre neighbourhood.
“No mayoral candidate has come up with a plan like this. When I become mayor, this is what I’ll be doing every day — real solutions to real problems. We’re not going to talk about raking up leaves. We’re going to talk about human life.”
Vogiatzakis said it would cost $5.1 million a year to operate the facility.
“We’d work with the provincial and federal federal government to make this a plan that’s going to work,” he said.
The candidate said the facility might be built by a group of entrepreneurs that includes Ken Cranwill, who owns two addictions treatment centres, including the Kelburn Recovery Centre in Howden, Man.
Woodstock promises no council self-promotion
Meanwhile, Don Woodstock promised Friday to ban self-promotional advertising by city council members.
Woodstock said if he’s elected, members of council would no longer be allowed to use public funds to pay for bus or park bench signs, transit shelter and trash-receptacle ads, and billboards.
They also would not be able to send taxpayer-funded mailers to people’s homes or pay for targeted social media ads.