A BC Housing tenant is speaking out after being told child services were called on her to get her to accept a transfer.
Erin Wyatt does her best to provide for her six children but says it has gotten harder in the past few years. Leaks are rotting both the floor and ceiling in her unit, making it dangerous to use the apartment’s only bathroom.
BC Housing has been Wyatt’s landlord in Vancouver for the past decade. She says she alerted them to the leak when it first started — about three years ago — and asked for it to be fixed multiple times.
“God forbid one of us fell through the ceiling and died or got maimed,” she said.
“Would they care? No, they don’t care about us.”
This year, staff finally decided it needed to be dealt with, but said she would have to move while the renovation took place. Wyatt, who’s disabled, says the unit she has been offered isn’t acceptable.
The proposed apartment is immediately adjacent to one infested with cockroaches and mice that CityNews showed in November, prompting this barb in the B.C. Legislature from Surrey-Serpentine River MLA Linda Hepner:
“Can the minister please tell us how many cockroaches she thinks are acceptable in a BC Housing unit?”
Wyatt says she already beat an infestation when she moved into her current unit, and she doesn’t want to risk going through it again.
“You know, there were many nights of crying, trying to comfort my kids, and telling them it’s okay, while cockroaches are falling in your food and crawling on your body,” she said.
“I ended up with sepsis from bed bug bites and almost dying. Like it’s just insane.”
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Wyatt says she recorded a meeting she had with BC Housing staff last month in which an employee admits he called child services on her, in part to motivate her to accept the new apartment.
“My goal with that was to try to get you as many supports as possible, to get you to see the place as soon as possible,” the employee says in the recording.
Wyatt says child services sent case workers to her kids’ schools, which she sees as an underhanded pressure tactic.
“I mean, it’s the lowest of humanity that you can really get, to attack children to get the outcome,” she said.
Commenting on Wyatt’s situation with her written consent, BC Housing chalked up calling child services to legal obligation.