SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Sheyana Mantla celebrated her second birthday on May 12 without a place to call home.

She and her mother, Jeannie Mantla, 19, were sent packing from their Fort Garry Apartments unit on May 6, weeks sooner than expected.

Jeannie Mantla and her two-year-old daughter Sheyana have not had a place to live since their eviction from the Fort Gary Apartments on May 6. - Alyssa Smith/NNSL photo

Mantla said the Yellowknife Housing Authority notified her at the beginning of this month that her lease would be up on May 31, and she would have to leave the unit at that time. The apartment is owned by Northern Property REIT but is leased to the housing authority, which had sub-leased the unit to Mantla.

She said she was at home with her daughter and two friends on May 6, when a property manager from Northern Property REIT opened the door to her apartment, came in and told her to get out. Mantla said she was not given a reason why she was required to leave, and isn't sure what it could be.

The property manager declined comment.

Mantla said moving around with a two-year-old is difficult, but she and Sheyana are coping. For the past three weeks they have stayed with various friends, in hotels and are currently staying with her mother and her mother's boyfriend at their apartment in Yellowknife.

"I've got nowhere else to go," she said. "I just want to keep my daughter in a safe place. I really miss home."

Mantla is currently unemployed and on income support.

Before moving into her apartment three months ago, Mantla and her daughter were staying with friends. She had not lived at home since the middle of 2009 because she said she does not get along with her mother's boyfriend.

Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins said he's concerned proper procedures are not being followed.

"This is kind of a barbaric way of doing things," he said. "The department of housing could potentially be standing by while we have an illegal eviction by the Yellowknife Housing Authority," he said. "They need to be concerned about that and investigate it to make sure that's not the case."

Hawkins said when he brought up his concerns with Robert McLeod, the minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, in the legislative assembly last week, McLeod seemed "standoffish."

The minister told Hawkins in the legislature that he would look into the issue, but that the housing corporation was not directly responsible.

"This is not the corporation's doing," he said. "We have delegated the authority for these types of decisions to the housing authority."

Arlene Hache of the Centre for Northern Families said she is concerned with how long it's taking McLeod to look into the issue.

"They could have her back in her unit today. It doesn't take a month to know if it's illegal or not," she said, adding that the department must ensure there was no "illegal action."

"There is no excuse and no reason for this mother and her child to be on the street," she said.

Hal Logsdon, the rental officer in Yellowknife, said leasing from private landlords is a common practise for social housing providers like the Yellowknife Housing Authority.

"It's a fairly cost-efficient way of delivering public housing," he said.

Logsdon said these re-renting situations involve two tenancy agreements: one between the private landlord (like Northern Property REIT) and the social housing landlord (like the Yellowknife Housing Authority), as well as one between the housing authority and the tenant residing in the unit.

He added that in these situations there shouldn't be a direct relationship between private landlords like Northern Property REIT and the tenant residing in the unit.

Logsdon said that in the event a tenant is making a disturbance in a building, the private landlord has no standing to make an application to end the tenancy order simply because they do not have a tenancy agreement with the tenant: the housing authority does.

As to whether or not a property manager from Northern Property REIT would be allowed to enter a unit occupied by a tenant of the housing authority, Logsdon said notice would have to be given to both the housing authority and the tenant.

Logsdon said that there are no circumstances which legally entitle a landlord to evict a tenant.

"If they actually want the tenant legally evicted, they must get the sheriff to do it. And the sheriff will only do it with an order from the Supreme Court, and to get a court order, you have to be the landlord," he said.

Logsdon explained that unlike private landlords, tenancy agreements with social housing landlords made for a term do expire. There's no automatic renewal.

A housing authority can either go through a rental officer by an application, and ask the rental officer to terminate a tenancy by order, or they can simply wait until the end of the term and not renew the lease.

Logsdon said the housing authority is not legally required to give any notice that it will not be renewing the lease, but said that he would think it would do so anyway, just as a heads-up to the tenant.

"How would the tenant know otherwise?" he said.

Logsdon said that to his knowledge, this notice is often given.

Housing authority chief executive officer Jim White said he could not speak specifically about individual tenant cases.

White did acknowledge that an application must be made to the Territorial Supreme Court for an eviction to be legal.

When asked about whether or not the housing authority has always followed these requirements he replied, "yes."

A rental office hearing between Mantla and the Yellowknife Housing Authority was held Wednesday morning. Logsdon said he has yet to reach a decision in the matter.