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DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION
For a few nerve-wracking hours last week, a Fort Resolution family of eight faced immediate eviction from their home.

A Fort Resolution family – from left, Taylor McKay, Patricia Mandeville, Kylee McKay, Darren McKay Jr., Darren McKay and Darian McKay – faced eviction from their home on April 11, along with two other children in the family. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

However, the eviction was halted, and a compromise was reached late last week to allow the family to stay in the public housing unit.

Darren McKay and his partner Patricia Mandeville said they were unaware they and their six children were facing eviction until a sheriff knocked on their door at about 11 a.m. on April 11.

"We don't know what's going to happen," said a distraught Mandeville as the eviction drama was unfolding. "We don't even know where to go. There's a clan of us."

As she was speaking in her kitchen, a worker could be heard placing a lock on the front door of the three-bedroom house.

Both McKay and Mandeville said they were given no notice of the eviction.

Mandeville said it was an overwhelming situation." Oh my God, it's just devastating."

A couple of hours after the lock was placed on the front door, the worker returned to remove it. No lock was placed on the side door of the house, allowing the family to come and go.

Friends and relatives dropped in to see what was going on and there was even talk of a sit-in if there had been any attempt to remove the family from the house.

McKay previously received documents stating an eviction order had been issued on Sept. 30 by the NWT Rental Office.

The order followed a video-conference hearing on Sept. 28 that McKay said he missed by five minutes.

"I got a letter later saying I was getting garnisheed," he said. "So from there I figured they're garnisheeing me so I'm OK and they're not going to evict me. Today, this sheriff comes here and he's evicting us."

McKay said his wages as a facility maintainer with the Hamlet of Fort Resolution have been garnished for about five months with the amount determined by the number of hours he works.

His two-week paycheque from Feb. 23 shows that $440.97 was garnished.

McKay, 40, and Mandeville, 36, are far in arrears - $49,584 - for rent on the house where they have lived for about 12 years.

Deninu Ku'e First Nation Chief Louis Balsillie, who is also a board member of the Fort Resolution Housing Authority, said the authority was not aware the sheriff was coming into the community from Hay River, although it knew the family was facing eviction by the end of May.

"Everybody was up in arms and upset about it," he said of the community's reaction to the attempted eviction.

Balsillie said he contacted Robert C. McLeod, the minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation (NWTHC).

McLeod said he left it up to community leadership, the housing authority and the client to reach an acceptable arrangement to deal with the situation, and, if they did, he would endorse it.

"I've got to say that I have the utmost respect for the minister of housing for coming through," Balsillie said, noting Tu Nedhe MLA Tom Beaulieu was also involved in discussions.

McLeod said the sheriff halted the eviction after he realized the family would refuse to leave the house.

The board of the housing authority and community members got together with McKay on Friday and made a one-time offer to settle the matter.

"The deal is going to be that he has to keep his payments up, otherwise we will not step in again," Balsillie said.

The chief said there may be consideration in the future about the family moving into a bigger unit.

McKay and Mandeville live in the current house with their six children - a boy and five girls ranging in age from two to 17.

"It's poor living conditions. You could say I'm living in squalor," McKay said, noting the house is cold in winter, broken tiles on the floor hurt his children's feet, cupboards are falling down, the bathroom door doesn't lock, and there is no proper insulation or complete siding.

The living conditions are so crowded he has created a basic living room for himself in a nearby shed so other family members can have more room in the house. He occasionally even sleeps in the shed.

The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation declined to specifically discuss the situation of the McKay/Mandeville family because of privacy concerns.

Cara Bryant, a corporation spokesperson, said public housing tenants in arrears have the opportunity to work with local housing organizations (LHOs) or the corporation to begin a reasonable and affordable repayment plan.

"Eviction is the last step in a long process," she said. "Multiple attempts are made on the part of the NWTHC and LHOs to work with tenants in order to keep them in their public housing unit."

A moratorium on public housing evictions due to rental arrears was in place from Jan. 1 to April 1.

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