By Hina Alam

Paul Martin’s workplace investigated 4,630 public housing items between April 1, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2024, and located that 85% of houses didn’t meet inspection necessities. Work orders for things like repairs to smoke alarms, home equipment, and flooring weren’t accomplished on a well timed foundation, and the company didn’t create a price range for the 2024-25 fiscal 12 months, leaving officers unable to correctly plan operations, his report stated.

“There’s an actual deficiency that must be addressed,” Martin informed reporters Tuesday after releasing his report on the New Brunswick Housing Company.

The auditor normal stated he selected to take a look at public housing due to the elevated demand for protected, inexpensive houses within the province.

What shocked him most, he informed reporters, was that throughout the interval of his investigation a fireplace destroyed a 10-unit housing complicated in Edmundston, positioned by the border with Maine. 

And whereas the fireplace marshall’s workplace stated the reason for the fireplace was undetermined, “hypotheses thought-about had been famous as being electrical in nature,” the report stated. However regardless of the fireplace, the housing company continued to omit annual electrical inspections, required by the company’s insurance policies, in Edmundston and in three different areas.

The Crown company is meant to examine the general situation of public housing items yearly, and when a unit is vacated. However in quite a few areas, “no inspections are being carried out,” Martin stated.

It took the housing company a mean of 140 days to organize a unit for a brand new tenant, as an alternative of the one-month restrict required by the Crown company’s coverage, leaving a wait-list of 13,129 folks hoping to get one of many homes, the report stated.

Martin’s report discovered that 71% of repairs that ought to have been accomplished inside 24 hours of being reported weren’t carried out on time. It additionally famous that 36% of all restore work wasn’t accomplished throughout the focused time interval.

In the meantime, the New Brunswick Housing Company didn’t create a price range for the 2024-25 fiscal 12 months, an omission the report stated “will increase the danger of the group being considerably over or beneath price range.”

Through the audit interval, the report stated there have been 3,045 requests associated to pest points resembling mattress bugs, mice, rats and roaches, and 53% of the complaints weren’t resolved throughout the company’s targets. About 41% of the pest complaints got here from the Saint John area.

“The time to deal with these points ranged from lower than a day to 1,068 days,” it stated.

Opposition Chief Glen Savoie stated the issues outlined in Martin’s report had been systemic.

“Governments come and governments go,” stated the Progressive Conservative. “However the departments are there always. So that is one thing that’s taking place throughout the division over a interval of years.”

Inexperienced Get together Chief David Coon stated the hole between what is required what’s being carried out to take care of public housing “is the dimensions of the Grand Canyon. And that has big implications for folks’s security, for his or her safety and their well being.”

However the report affords no perception into why public housing appears damaged, Coon stated.

“Is {that a} cultural downside within the group answerable for upkeep? Is it a structural downside? …. We don’t know that.”

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Final modified: June 10, 2025