Keith and Carrie Lavelle. (Mike Lacasse / XFM News)
When Keith and Carrie Lavelle were asked if they could provide a home to their newly born grandson Wade, they say they were ecstatic.
They say Wade’s parents had decided they were no longer capable of taking care of him and that the Children’s Aid Society approached them as an alternative to foster care.
From what they’ve heard of the system, it was the last thing they wanted to happen.
“We also have the wife’s nieces that have gone through foster care,” says Keith “We’ve heard horror stories from them, and we don’t want that for him.”
When they took on this new responsibility, they had a home but were involved in a legal battle with their landlord that they’d been hoping to win.
They say their troubles started with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Being type 2 diabetic and asthmatic, I felt it was safer if I stayed home and away from as many people as possible,” says Keith. “When CERB came out, I applied for that and we tried to get information on how that would affect our ODSP payments, if at all, but we didn’t get any clear answers.”
He says they moved into their old apartment 6 years ago and that ODSP had arranged for his wife’s payments to be directly given to their landlord for rent and that while the property changed hands several times over the years, their arrangement was always grandfathered in.
Keith and Carrie Lavelle with their grandson Wade. (Mike Lacasse / XFM News)
“We also have the wife’s nieces that have gone through foster care. We’ve heard horror stories from them, and we don’t want that for him.”
Keith Lavelle, talking about his grandson Wade
CERB was high enough to cut off their ODSP payments and while the government sent them a letter telling them that they wouldn’t be paying their rent anymore, Lavelle says they never received it.
“Everything went online, so through the ODSP portal,” says Carrie Lavelle. “Online’s not perfect. There’s issues. We weren’t receiving what ODSP was sending us.”
Keith says that if they had any problems with ODSP in the past, their landlord would contact them almost immediately but this time that didn’t happen.
“We didn’t even know until 8 months later when we received an N4 notice to evict due to non-payment under our door,” he says.
They took the case online before the Landlord and Tenant Board where they say they came to an arrangement, but because ODSP had been paying their rent for years, they needed to know where the money needed to go and they say the rental company wasn’t telling them.
“They board said, to the landlords, ‘please forward this information to her, how she pays’. Nobody was forwarding anything,” says Carrie. “I got legal aid involved and got them to, finally after months, get this figured out. I went to go try to pay and they blocked me.”
They say the property management company they rented under for years locked them out of their web portal, which was how they accepted payment, and refused to answer their calls or emails.
Ultimately, they lost their case.
“The judge didn’t believe us,” says Carrie. “I mean, what sort of landlord doesn’t want money?”
Now, after over a year of legal battles and uncertainty and having been recently evicted, they’ve turned to living in hotels for as long as they can afford it.
The Children’s Aid Society told them that as long as they can provide their grandson a home, they will be allowed to take care of him.
“As long as we have a roof over our head, where it’s a hotel, motel, we can get help somewhere, they’re fine with us having him,” says Carrie. “He’s still being fed, he’s still being taken care of, but this isn’t ideal. We need a home.”
After going through all of their savings they were keeping for first and last month’s rent on hotel rooms just to have a place to stay, they’re running out of options and have started a GoFundMe as a last resort.
“Were down to paycheck to paycheck,” says Keith. “And my ODSP,” adds Carrie. “I mean, if we can find a place that we can rent for a month, that would be great, we could be more stable. At this point I don’t know of any hotel, or motel, that you can afford a month.”
“If anybody out there, anybody, has a basement they want to rent out to us, we’re good with that as long as it’s safe for him,” she says. “At the end of the month we’ll have enough for first month’s rent. If we can get help for last month’s rent, then great.”
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