WINNIPEG A Winnipeg building built more than 100-years-ago has sat vacant for more than half a decade. Advocates are calling on the owners to give the shuttered building a second lease on life, and want the city to step in and make it happen. The Rubin Block sits at the corner of Morley Avenue and Osborne Street. While it is now empty and boarded up – many in the community see its potential as a way to revitalize the community and use its 21 apartments and retail space to provide affordable housing in the city. It s a very important block on the corner of Morley and Osborne to the community, to South Osborne, said Cindy Tugwell, the executive director of Heritage Winnipeg, one of the groups that have been advocating for the building for nearly five years.
Winnipeg Free Press
Rubin Block in South Osborne sitting vacant since 2014
Last Modified: 9:52 AM CST Monday, Jan. 11, 2021 | Updates
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
The Rubin Block at 270 Morley Ave. has been vacant and growing derelict since 2014, and a new petition has been circulating urging the owners to act and sell it to a buyer who will actually maintain it.
Nobody’s lived at the Rubin Block for more than six years.
Nobody’s lived at the Rubin Block for more than six years.
Its 21 suites sit empty, with most boarded up. The main-floor windows are obscured by plywood, hardly windows at all, more like closed doors. The 106-year-old building at the corner of Osborne Street and Morley Avenue is on a national list of endangered places, and without intervention, it will be in danger of disappearing at a time when housing needs to be maintained and protected, a growing chorus of neighbourhood voices says.
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16 December, 2020 The Jebbos, (from left, at back) Asmaa, Amal, Fatima El Hussein (the mother), Abdallah (at front), Allam (the father), Amina (on her fatherâs lap), Anas (at front) and Mohammad, sitting at their home in Winnipeg. (Maan Alhmidi)
When Allam Jebbo and his wife Fatima El Hussein fled Syria for Canada via Lebanon, they had one thing in their minds: moving to a safe place where their children could go to school.
The family was sponsored by the Canadian government after being nominated in 2016 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon. Since landing as refugees more than three years ago, they have been living with their six children in a three-bedroom townhouse on Rose Avenue in downtown Winnipeg. Now, they call this place home, and they are ready to apply to become Canadian citizens.