This is part two in a three-part series about the lack of affordable and supportive housing for vulnerable people in Whitehorse.

Three people living at the Chilkoot Trail Inn died over the summer – all were on social assistance and their families say they struggled with alcohol addiction.

Autopsy and toxicology test results are pending, but the deaths are not believed to be suspicious.

These people’s stories formed part one of the series, which ran in Friday’s edition. The third instalment will be published tomorrow.

The lobby of the Chilkoot Trail Inn is small, with faded carpet.

There are chairs, a small table and a plant against the far wall.

The receptionist sits at a desk to the right of the front door.

The Star has not been able to see what the hallways and rooms inside the Fourth Avenue hotel look like.

The paper made repeated attempts over the past week to interview the inn’s owner, Gurmeet Gill, and tour the building, but was told by staff he was out of town. A woman who answered the phone at the hotel this morning told the Star that Gill did not wish to be involved in this story.

Family members of three people who died this summer while living at the Chilkoot say it is rundown and filthy.

When Rachel* went to clean out her brother Harry’s* room after his death in July, she says the stench throughout the place was nauseating.

Emily* used to visit her mother at the Chilkoot before her death in June, and she’d refuse to use the dirty bathroom shared among multiple people on the floor.

A review posted on Trip Advisor warns travellers to “Stay away” and “Sleep in your car if you have no better option.”

“It’s an embarrassment that we as people think that that’s OK,” Rachel says. Her brother lived at the hotel for years, on social assistance and struggling with alcoholism.

“That’s an OK place for us to house people who have difficulties, where they have zero hope of rising above that filth that they’re in?” she says.

“You can’t ask somebody to improve on their life when that’s what they go home to at night. You have to offer a clean space, a place to do laundry, where they can take maybe a little pride and have some assistance to reach those goals.”

For years, the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition (YAPC) and other local organizations have been calling for more affordable housing in Whitehorse.

In its 2011 report, A Home For Everyone: A Housing Action Plan for Whitehorse, the coalition noted that supportive housing for vulnerable populations, including people with addictions and mental health issues, is “insufficient or non-existent.”

The Salvation Army is often at or over capacity and hotel rates are unaffordable to transient and low-income people, the report noted.

Since then, the Yukon government has announced an expansion of the Sally Ann – 25 emergency shelter beds plus 22 transitional housing units – as well as a new transition home on Fourth Avenue for five to 10 people dealing with mental health issues and homelessness.

But it’s not enough.

YAPC co-chair Charlotte Hrenchuk says these projects help, but permanent, supportive housing is what’s desperately needed.

“We need a range of housing options,” she says. “We need a range of supports. There’s no magic bullet. We need a range of supports for a range of people with a range of needs. And it’s very slow in happening.”

The Canadian Rental Housing Index, released last Thursday, rates the Yukon’s housing affordability as poor, with the average rent being $952 plus utilities.

Roughly one-third of renters in the territory spend more than 30 per cent of their income on rent, while 13 per cent of renters spend more than 50 per cent.

“Housing is typically considered affordable if a household spends 30% or less of its before-tax income on rent plus utilities,” the online index states.

Earlier this year, the Yukon government approved its Housing Action Plan, which includes goals such as increasing access to affordable rental housing and helping people obtain housing with services.

“Emergency shelters can become oversubscribed and residents stay for long periods of time due to lack of transitional or permanent housing options,” the plan states.

“The demand for social and rent-geared-to-income housing exceeds supply and waiting lists and timelines can be long.”

As of July, 712 people in Whitehorse and 91 in the communities were on social assistance.

The majority of these people live in private housing, but some rely on hotels, including the Chilkoot Trail Inn, the River View Hotel and the Stratford Motel.

According to the Department of Health and Social Services, the Chilkoot houses the most people on a monthly basis.

Department spokeswoman Marcelle Dubé says social assistance clients are responsible for finding their own place to live.

“That said, options can be limited as to what accommodations are available,” she writes in an email. “Sometimes SA clients are on waiting lists for social housing and have to live somewhere until they can get in.”

That somewhere, in some cases, is a highly priced hotel.

According to Rachel, her brother Harry received about $1,400 in social assistance every month and $1,000 of that went towards his rent.

The amount a person can receive depends on the allowances set out in the territorial Social Assistance Act regulations. A single person may receive between $911 and $1,033 for shelter and utilities, depending on the season.

“Instead of investing in affordable housing, the Yukon Party government is leasing hotel rooms, often at the highest rates possible to be paid by social assistance in order to make up for its neglect of the housing continuum,” Yukon NDP housing critic Kate White said in the legislature last spring.

“Long-stay hotel rooms are meant to be an emergency stop-gap in the housing continuum, not a stand-alone permanent measure.”

In June of this year, Health and Social Services issued 22 payments to the Chilkoot on behalf of social assistance clients.

This number fluctuates from month to month.

In 2014, the Yukon government spent about $585,000 to house a monthly average of 58 social assistance clients in hotels, Health and Social Services Minister Mike Nixon said in response to White’s questions in the legislature.

These rooms often have no kitchen, and multiple residents share a bathroom.

“It’s obviously not going into the hotels,” says Kwanlin Dün First Nation Chief Doris Bill about the thousands of dollars in social assistance. “It’s not going to services for the people who are living in them.”

After visiting the Chilkoot to clear out her brother’s room after his death, Rachel agrees.

“I’m pretty sure you could find a fairly decent place somewhere to rent for $1,000 a month that at least has a toilet that’s sitting straight up and a shower that looks like you might want to step into it without full plastic on,” she says.

Bill sounds emotional as she talks about the three deaths at the Chilkoot over the summer.

“It’s very troubling for me because some of these people I have known personally,” she says. “People shouldn’t have to live like that.”

Given these conditions, and the tens of thousands of dollars the Chilkoot receives in taxpayer dollars each month, why isn’t it ordered to improve its living conditions? Why doesn’t the government withhold funds until it and other hotels like it clean up their act?

“The Income Support Unit has social workers, not building inspectors,” says Dubé.

The unit administers social assistance, and it has no legislative authority over building standards, she adds.

That authority lies with the environmental heath services (EHS) branch. Social assistance payments could be withheld if an accommodation is found to not meet health or safety standards.

But the EHS branch does not conduct routine inspections of hotels. There are no specific requirements that hotels must meet under the Public Health and Safety Act.

A hotel resident may make a complaint about cleanliness or a safety hazard, but only if it is a public health issue – for example, a significant sewage spill – can investigators order the hotel to fix the problem or close.

“It has to be a public issue,” says Dubé.

For disputes between a tenant and a landlord, there is the Landlord and Tenant Act.

But it doesn’t apply to hotels – under the 2002 legislation, hotels are not regulated as a residential tenancy, meaning there are no standards they’re required to meet.

Hotels turned rooming houses don’t provide the best conditions for vulnerable people, says Bill.

“That could be contributing to some of the deaths. We don’t know.”

In June, Emily’s mother died after falling and hitting her head at at the Chilkoot Trail Inn. She says her mom and her partner were trying to kick their alcohol addictions.

“Living at the Chilkoot wasn’t the spot to quit,” she says.

Hrenchuk of the YAPC agrees. There are no supports offered to people there, she says. The outreach van drops by, but it’s not a constant service.

“If you think about living in conditions like what are available at the Chilkoot, of course it’s really difficult to change your life,” Hrenchuk says.

Emily says since she was a child, she’s heard people describing the hotel as rundown and decrepit.

But, she says, there’s nowhere else for some people to go.

“Nobody else is going to put up with their ‘stuff,’” she says, referring to some residents’ alcohol and drug use.

*Names have been changed at the families’ request to protect their privacy.