ACORN, RavenLaw win victory for Herongate tenants

Victory was sweet.  But another safe sidewalk in the Timbercreek Herongate community will be even sweeter.

 

To get us there, ACORN teamed up with the UofO social justice caucus and union-side labour law firm Raven, Cameron, Ballantyne & Yazbeck LLP, to force Timbercreek’s hand to repair a 150 meter stretch of dilapidated walkway.  Located just south of the development bordering Sandalwood Park, the walkway had been allowed by the landlord to degenerate into a serious safety hazard for residents.

 

Despite years of repair requests by residents, including ACORN member Mavis Finnamore, neither Timbercreek nor its predecessor landlords bothered to mend the broken pathway, which has since deteriorated to rubble.  That is, at least until Finnamore got sick of asking and decided to file an application at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) with the support of UofO law student Geoff Wong and local immigration lawyer George Brown.

 

With the application submitted and a hearing date set, Wong and Brown passed the file onto RavenLaw, who provided the services of their articling student and former housing justice coordinator Daniel Tucker-Simmons to represent Finnamore at the January 13th hearing.

 

Tucker-Simmons and Finnamore won the hearing.  And the victory means that Timbercreek will have to fork-over the cash to fix the walkway.

 

This victory is the latest in a series of big wins for ACORN’s housing justice campaign, which stretches back to 2011.  Since ACORN decided to stop asking and start pushing, it has help residents achieve over $200,000 in rent abatements and repair work.

 

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