The Mountain View Seniors Housing (MVSH) board has requested that the Government of Alberta dispose of 13 vacant housing units in the communities of Olds, Didsbury and Carstairs. The government owns the units, while MVSH operates them.
In a letter to Carstairs council dated April 25, Philip Henke, director for Housing Management Body Operations and Compliance, Government of Alberta, stated that the Alberta Social Housing Corporation is currently reviewing options for these 13 vacant community housing units, which consist of eight units in Olds, four in Didsbury and one in Carstairs.
"Those properties are owned by the province (Minister of Seniors and Housing)," said Sam Smalldon, CAO of MVSH. "Mountain View Seniors' Housing for the past several years has been recommending that the minister dispose of those assets so they get sold and get used by members of the public. In December, the minister approved that they could be disposed. We're currently in what's called by them, a disposal process."
All the units are vacant and unable to be lived in unless there are repairs done, he said.
"They need major repairs," he said. "Since the province owns the asset, they are the ones to either fund it or we suggest if they're not willing to fund it, they sell them. That was the choice we recommended to the minister: if they weren't going to fix them, they sell them."
The disposal process involves a series of five steps, he explained.
"The first step is to ask each municipality if they have an interest in the property or have a recommendation for the property," he said. "Each municipality, the Town of Carstairs, the Town of Didsbury, the Town of Olds should get a letter (from the government) and respond to that as to whether they wish to have any purpose or interest in the property or not."
MVHS will continue to maintain the properties and be reimbursed by the province until the properties are sold and there is a new owner, he said.
Once all 13 properties are disposed of MVHS will still operate eight community housing units, he said.
"We have no identifiable excess demand for the others," he said. "So that's why it makes it so they are just sitting empty and costing money."
