01/20/2026
Here is an update on the Rainbow Lodge situation and please read it all. There is some very important information here:
Yes this guy has been evicted and left last Tuesday night, but that is not where this story ends. It is a much bigger problem than one guy and it's not just a Swan River problem. This affects all of Manitoba because the standard practice is to use the 50+ buildings under Manitoba Housing for anyone that meets their criteria.
As far as I can gather from what is on their web page, and please correct me if this is wrong, is this:
You must complete an application
Have a total adjusted household income at or below the rental Program Income Limits
Be in core housing need
Be a Canadian Citizen, permanent resident of Canada or refugee claimant
Provide a rental history
Pay outstanding debt owed to the program or sign an approved payment plan
As of January 1, 2026 I no longer even see where you have to be at least 50! What is happening to senior housing?
People are not vetted before being accepted. There is no criminal record check or vulnerable persons check. Nothing except maybe a short interview asking if they have an addiction, like they are going to admit it! I'm not sure if they even still do that much.
We all know what Swan River and so many other places have become like with the drugs and homelessness. I feel this is an unsafe practice.
We were PROMISED a year and a half ago, when Manitoba Housing officials visited, that they would not be putting people with multi-layered mental illness and/or addictions in here with us and we weren't even notified that this guy was moving in.
My name is Donna Gornik and I have asked to write my story here so you can decide for yourself if it's really safe here like the government is saying.
I have lived here with my partner for 11 years next month. The first six and half years there were many very nice people living here and not all the problems we have now. The past four and half years have been a nightmare. It has been one eviction after another with people having multi-layered mental illness or addictions. I can think of 11 people off the top of my head, who were evicted in the past few years. I think we have given the government's way more than a fair trial and it Doesn't work. Are they waiting for someone to get seriously hurt or even killed before something is changed? Or will they even care then.
With this last guy alone, and please remember he was only here two and half months, here are some of the things that I, myself, was witness to.
I went to the laundry room to get my laundry out of the dryer. I found the door shut and when I went to push it open I was told to wait. There were two women in there claiming to just be changing their socks. When I got them out and they left I went for my laundry and it was more wet than when I put it in the dryer. What did they do to it???
Another resident and I were going to take down our Christmas decorations because so many of them had already been stolen, and when I went in the common room to start I found two people sleeping in there.
The amount of traffic coming and going from the building was ridiculous and it was all day and all night. Lots of times with groups of three or more coming at a time, with most staying only a few minutes.
I saw six people in the common room, none of them were residents, and when they left there were beer cans in the garbage. Another time I saw three people in there and again beer cans when they left.
He would do laundry at all hours, sometimes starting at 7 am and going until 1-3 am and start all over again the next day. He ran the machines until they broke down.
A fight broke out in his room.
I saw him try to intimidate another resident.
Of course, there were dirty needles found both inside and outside the building.
One resident would only come out of her unit when absolutely necessary and she is usually a very outgoing person. For another lady, I would wait for her to get to her unit at night and lock her door before going to my unit. Myself, I wouldn't take my dog out after dark without taking someone else to watch my back. Usually my partner or one of my grown children.
In the past, with other people who eventually got evicted, my partner and I listened to people holler and even scream to be let in both during the day and through the night, and had rocks thrown at our bedroom window. I found a guy sleeping on the floor of the second floor lobby, and I found human f***s in the laundry room garbage. There was lewd writing, in permanent black marker on the loveseat on the second floor lobby. I found a crack pipe in the stairwell, so many dirty needles both inside and outside the building. At one point, it smelled like a cheap hotel when you walked into the building, with the air blue with smoke and the stench of stale alcohol and w**d. All day and all night parties and the list goes on.
I even had 2 males on separate occasions, knock on my door and get in my face because they got evicted like I did something wrong instead of them not being able to follow a few simple rules and be a little bit respectful of others.
This is what the government is calling a safe building. Does this sound safe to you? And this stuff happened with usually a dozen residents or less living here. In fact, there are 7 people living in the Rainbow right now and with just one suspected drug dealer added we end up with so many problems. We didn't have any of these problems when there were 30 or more people living here but we didn't have these kinds of people living in here then and it was a 55+ building.
Renos have now started on the third floor. When those are done, the plan, as I understand it, is to start moving people in. These may be people that have multi-layered mental illness and/or addictions or people who have trashed who knows how many homes before. That's who they could be putting in these nice newly renovated units to waste tax payers dollars again and have residents live in fear.
Please, don't get me wrong, we look forward to new residents moving in. More people to join in with the activities and to visit with. Maybe even start up some other activities. We just don't want people with multi-layered mental illness and addictions here. Did we not learn anything from the Rob Reiner tragedy? Their son struggled for years with mental illness and addictions and he killed his own parents. What would someone with these issues do to one of us?
These people need their own housing. And yes I know housing isn't easy to find, especially for people who continually destroy homes but the government shouldn't be using seniors as their scapegoats just so they can tell the public what a good job they did of solving the homeless problem and pat themselves on the back and not give us a second thought.
REMEMBER, this isn't just happening in Swan River. This is a Manitoba problem. It's already happened in Dauphin and from what I have been told, it's starting to happen in Roblin as well and I'm sure many more towns could stand up and say its happening
there too. The government will say its working wonderfully in Dauphin but talk to the residents and find out whats really going on, if they aren't too afraid to talk.
I have called the Ministers office several times. The first time I was given a run around and no one returned my call. Then several calls went to voicemail. The last time I called, someone actually answered and said someone would get back to me quite quickly. I'm still waiting.
The Premiers office won't even promise a call back and where is Mr. Wowchuk in all this?
I called Mr. Wowchuk's office back in November and he didn't call back. I went to his office the first week in January and the lady there said she hadn't heard from him. She didn't know where he was or when he would be back. I made another visit to his office and no one was there. I got no call back either.
I'm sure they all think they can ignore me and eventually I will go away, but I can't. This is my life, my home and my safety as well as that of the other residents living here.
My hope is that people in other communities will call the Minister, Premier and or MLA's office, write letters or maybe even start petitions. Please, if you do start a petition, make sure you get it vetted with the Legislature first or it won't be accepted. If you need help with that, feel free to message me and I will help get you started. It really isn't that hard. If you have any helpful suggestions, I would love to hear them.
I don't think we are expecting too much. We would like a criminal record check and a vulnerable persons record check done as well as giving the tent service coordinator and the property manager the right to refuse tendency based on their knowledge of the applicant having either multi-layered mental illness and/or addictions or some other issue that could be harmful to residents. How can Winnipeg know who are unsafe people in each community? And with the age limit being restored to at least 50+, with 55+ being preferred as it used to be. We would like our last years to be peaceful, happy and safe.
I would like to thank everyone who played a part in making this last eviction happen, with a special thank you to the people at Safer Communities. These people are great to work with. Thanks to Bill Gade for getting another story out there for us and the community for its wonderful support. You people are great.
We really have had so much wonderful support which leads me to believe that this town can be a nice place to live again but only if the government steps in and actually does something to clean up the drugs and homelessness problems instead of putting a band aid on the problem of homelessness and enabling the addicts.
For anyone interested in making a call or writing an e-mail, I will include the information at the bottom. Please, we can't let them take over our senior housing. Where do the seniors go? We might be getting old but we still matter.
Minister of Housing, Addictions and Homelessness
Bernadette Smith
Phone: 204-945-1211
E-mail: [email protected]
Deputy Minister's Office
Charlene Paquin
Phone: 204-945-5872
E-mail: [email protected]
Premier's Office
Wab Kinew
Phone: 204-945-3714
E-mail: [email protected]
MLA for our area
Rick Wowchuk
Phone: 204-945-1284
or 204-614-7425
E-mail: [email protected]
Send a message to learn more
