End Public Funding of Privately Owned Rooming Hotels, Says BC Fire Inquest Jury

The jury in a coroner’s inquest into the Winters Hotel fire that killed two people in Vancouver two years ago has recommended ending public funding for single-room-occupancy hotels in privately owned buildings. It’s among more than two dozen recommendations, including that BC Housing work with operators and owners to ensure SRO buildings be held to higher fire safety standards than the minimum. The inquest examined the deaths of Mary Ann Garlow and Dennis Guay, whose bodies were found in the rubble of the hotel in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood more than a week after the April 11, 2022, fire. The Winters Hotel was one of approximately 150 single-room housing buildings for some of Vancouver’s most vulnerable residents, who the jury heard are often on the verge of homelessness....