At 74, after a lifetime of paying taxes and raising five kids, Joan Marr just wanted to retire peacefully to her condo in Sidney.
But her home, like so many others in sa国际传媒 built in the 1980s and 1990s, was hit by the leaky-condo crisis, which left thousands of homeowners with hidden mould and water damage.
The only way she could afford the $80,000 in repairs, she said, was through the province's interest-free loan program.
But yesterday, before Marr and the other 14 seniors in her building could submit their joint loan application, the provincial government pulled the plug on the entire leaky-condo repair program.
The province said it would only honour applications made before yesterday to its Homeowner Protection Office Reconstruction Program.
"It's devastating," said Marr, who lives on a fixed income of $16,000 a year. "We cannot get a loan from the bank, we can't sell our condos. Where do you go? Where do you turn to? I wish somebody could tell us what we should do."
The government said the loan program had become financially unsustainable because its funding source, a $750 levy on new homes, dwindled as construction slowed during the recession.
sa国际传媒 Housing Minister Rich Coleman said the NDP created the fund in 1998 to run for 10 years and provide $250 million in loans. The program has now run 11 years and funded more than $670 million in loans for more than 16,000 people, he said.
"At this stage we feel very strongly that we've met our commitment. We felt it was time to sunset the program. Every application we have will get processed. If it qualifies, it will be funded. So nobody will be left out in the cold, so to speak."
That brought a sharp retort from former NDP premier Dave Barrett, whose report on the leaky-condo crisis helped create the loan program.
"It really is a shocking example of an irresponsible government," Barrett said.
Coleman said there's no reliable data on how many leaky condos remain in sa国际传媒 But he has scrapped the program barely a year after a report to the province suggested between 45 and 68 per cent of sa国际传媒's leaky condos had not yet been repaired.
The report said that of the nearly 160,000 strata-owned apartment units built during the leaky condo period -- 1982 to 1999 -- as many as 87,500 units leaked and suffered water damage, far more than the 65,000 the province had estimated.
NDP housing critic Shane Simpson called the cancellation "unconscionable."
"There are still an awful lot of buildings out there that still need work and government has simply chosen to turn their back on people."
Coleman left open the possibility of future one-time funding. "If I had something brought to me on a case-by-case basis that made some sense, we'd spend a little time looking at that."
For Marr and her fellow seniors, that may be their only way out.
"These are seniors who have paid taxes all their life and still have to face mortgages of $100,000 in their 90s," she said. "People are going to die.
"I'm afraid down the road I may have to walk away and leave my home. What else can you do?"
Marr is organizing a protest on the lawn of the legislature, Aug. 25 at 1 p.m.
