Disabled Tenant Describes Escape From North End Arson

A special edition of the Crime Courts & Public Safety Update has exclusive ActionLine details on two recent incidents – one in the North End, the other on Pembina Hwy. – where violent criminals terrorized female victims, with one left homeless.

4:40 Part 2- If she hadn’t delayed taking her sleeping pills – because she was on the phone with the cops for the second time Monday night about the tenants upstairs- Tamara Bard could have died.

In an extended interview, she says a “very physical” domestic disturbance that ended in a fire joined a long list of trouble from other tenants of the College Ave. house she’s lived in for 4 years.

It’s a story of a vulnerable tenant whose right to a safe home was ignored by ⁠a negligent⁠ property management company.

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Despite the cops doing a wellness check after her first call to 911 Monday evening, the fighting flared up again around midnight. After she hung up from that second call, a neighbour alerted her to a fire raging from the first floor.

A woman, her son and her boyfriend lived there. One was found dead and 2 are in hospital. The daughter of that woman, and a female roommate, lived in the top floor unit and were unharmed.

Tamara has been disabled since 2012 and barely escaped from her basement suite with her dog- but her 4 cats perished.

Her daughter set up a Go Fund Me and we are urging listeners to do what they can to assist Tamara. Click here-

⁠My mom lost her home & everything to a house fire⁠

16.30- You’ll be shocked by the revolving door of unstable ‘Housing First’ renters placed upstairs from Tamara by Ember Realty in the last 12 months.

A mother with 2 teenage boys lived upstairs from Jan.-June.

As Tamara describes, no matter how many complaints she made about fighting, screaming, and garbage, it took a naked missing teenage girl emerging from a bedroom window and a mad dog biting Tamara and a cop, to get them turfed. And that’s not all.

21:19 Part 3- After the missing girl was rescued and charges laid, it didn’t take long for a new set of problems.

According to Tamara, a St. Boniface homeless service agency referred a woman and her cousin to rent the unit, which lasted until November. You’ll hear about piles of garbage and dog crap, and vagrants pitching tents in the front yard.

Tamara describes a scene straight out of ‘Panic in Needle Park’ with rigs sticking out of the arms of zombies. The next door neighbours had to build a fence to protect their young kids and pets.

She says that Ember Realty didn’t really evict the druggies, they just dumped them into a West End property. She was almost flooded out by the arsonists who moved in after- and guess who referred them to the landlord?

Getting paid direct deposit by welfare was easy, but managing the social disorder of ‘Housing First’ policies and protect an honest, disabled resident was too hard. When we interviewed her for Episode 6, the landlord still hadn’t called to offer help. For Tamara Bard, a disabled tenant, it’s become ‘Housing Last’.

Sticking up for ‘good people on a really quiet street until the problems in the house’ she has a message to City Hall and the province:

“They say and do things that look good to the media… The system is very broken… it’s not them that is suffering… they’re safe, they’re warm.”

“They don’t know how the rest of us live and don’t care to. It makes them uncomfortable… If I would have taken them (sleeping pills) at 10 and went to bed, I can’t guarantee I would have been woken up.”

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46:50 Part 4- Degenerate criminals doesn’t only victimize residents. Family businesses are also under siege by the lawlessness roaming Winnipeg streets.

She told Marty Gold it sounded like a car crashing into her restaurant. Then, the owner of the Garwood Grill, closing up last Saturday, realized it was a goon trying to break in.

What’s it costing her to fix the front door? LOTS.