VANCOUVER - Some residents of Vancouver's impoverished Downtown Eastside are being squashed four-to-a-room while having to worry about their landlords ripping them off.
A retired police officer and expert on the area says not only do they have to deal with bed bugs and plugged toilets in the notorious single occupancy rooms, landlords are participating in a welfare scam that leaves many drug-addicted tenants with next to none of their income assistance.
Ken Frail, a retired inspector with the Vancouver Police Department, said in some cases, these landlords are keeping more than half of the money provided by income assistance for housing.
The problem is being perpetuated by a lack of inspections at the hotels by the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance, the ministry in charge of welfare, Frail said.
There are over 122 so-called single room occupancy hotels in the Downtown Eastside, the lowest rung on the housing scale.
In them, there is severe over-crowding and a lack of basic amenities for people looking for a place to stay at night.
Vancouver Coastal Health reports there are up to 16,000 people living in the Downtown Eastside, many of whom are addicted drug users or suffer from mental illness.
Frail outlined the scam in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Unscrupulous landlords agree to provide a fraudulent letter saying a prospective tenant has a room to stay, enabling the tenant to collect provincial assistance for shelter.
But in exchange, the room provided is already crowded and the landlord extorts a hefty portion of the tenants' welfare cheque.
"The landlords are keeping most of the money and only giving the addicts enough to feed their drug or alcohol habits,'' Frail said.
In 2005, in an attempt to show the City of Vancouver and the provincial government what's really going on, Frail headed a Vancouver Police Department initiative called Project Haven.
Project Haven involved undercover officers taking government-issued welfare cheques to three targeted hotels to see if they could get landlords to approve their cheques and give them cash.
"In many instances, our officers were only given $50 for a cheque that was valued at $375,'' Frail said.
"Our female officers were told by some of the landlords they would cash their cheques and allow them to bring tricks back to their rooms only if they would give them a ten-per-cent cut of what they made.''
The average recipient of income assistance receives $375 a month to cover rent and the average cost of a single occupancy room in the Downtown Eastside is $375.
"Now, they are packing four people in one room, so they are actually making four times the amount they are supposed to be getting,'' Frail said.
"You don't have to be a genius to see the injustice in that.''
In 2005, the evidence gathered in Project Haven helped expose the owners of three Downtown Eastside hotels.
Mario and Anna Laudisio, owners of the Brandiz Hotel, the Lucky Lodge and Powell Rooms, were forced to turn over the business license of the Lucky Lodge to their son and were subsequently banned from that property.
In 2007, the Laudisios were picked up again in a similar sting and are to appear in court March 27 on allegations of welfare fraud.
Also last year, the City of Vancouver, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance and the Vancouver police conducted a study of 54 residential building on health conditions, rents and vacancy rates and the business practices of landlords.
One of the hotels featured in the report was issued 43 cheques by the welfare office, when in fact, it only had 33 welfare recipients staying there.
The report also showed over 80 per cent of the buildings were infested with bed bugs and 77 per cent had a rodent or cockroach problem.
Mark Townsend, manager of the Portland Hotel Society, a not-for-profit hotel operating in the Downtown Eastside, said he's aware that people are cashing out their welfare cheques, but he's not sure how widespread the problem is.
"I know the residents are very industrious in finding out ways of getting some money,'' he said. "It's not because they're evil, it's because they're desperate.''
Jagrup Brar, the provincial NDP critic for income assistance, blames downsizing in the ministry.
"The ministry can't keep track of these landlords because they got rid of all of the case workers that used to take care of this sort of thing.''
The Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance has formed a task force to investigate welfare fraud, but they don't have enough inspectors to deal with the number of hotels in the area, Brar said.
Richard Chambers, spokesman for the B.C. Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance, said the task force involves four people who will investigate any allegations of fraud brought forward by a victim or the police.
"The task force concentrates on some hotels more than others because there may have been allegations of fraud there before,'' he said.
Although welfare fraud is a concern, one social housing advocacy group says the entire welfare system and the police are the problem, not just a few dishonest hotel landlords.
David Cunningham, organizer with the Vancouver-based Anti-Poverty Committee, was unimpressed with last year's sting.
"People are not getting enough money from welfare to pay rising rental rates. And the police are going in and busting landlords for fraud, potentially putting people out onto the streets,'' he said
"The police do these stings every year and nothing gets done to change the situation.''
