Update: After 48-hour outage, power restored to CityHousing Hamilton seniors building

About 200 seniors who live in a city-subsidized highrise on the Mountain have had power restored after more than 48 hours - an outage one tenant's family called unacceptable.

The CityHousing building at 801 Upper Gage Ave., near Mohawk Road East, was without power since at least Monday afternoon, leaving tenants without functioning lights, air conditioning or stoves.

Coun. Tom Jackson, whose ward encompasses the building, said power was restored around 1 a.m. Thursday.

There's nothing," Rose Kay, whose 87-year-old mother lives on the seventh floor of the 11-storey complex, said Wednesday before power was restored. They can't do anything. Their food is rotting in their fridges, their phones don't work, their lights, nothing.

It's unacceptable."

Kay said her mother has been given scant information about the outage, and was only notified of it after a notice was taped to her door.

They don't know anything about what caused it because they haven't been given an explanation. These are elderly people - not college students living in a dorm."

Jason Farr, president of CityHousing's board of directors, said the outage at the highrise stemmed from an issue in its electrical system." He said power remained on in the building's hallways and common room.

We've had about half of CityHousing's staff there helping residents," he said by phone around 7 p.m. Wednesday, noting free meals and grocery vouchers had been provided in the building's common room. It's all hands on deck to fix this."

Those comments ring hollow for Kay, who said power outages at the seniors' complex are all too common.

Not a month goes by in this building without the power being out for at least 30 minutes," she said. This has been an ongoing problem for years."

Jackson agreed that there is an unusual trend of outages in the building. He said he's now on a rampage" to permanently fix the problem.

Once the power is restored, I want a full debriefing on what's creating these issues," Jackson, who also sits on CityHousing's board as a voting member, said in an interview Wednedsay. These seniors don't need to live under this uncertainty anymore."

In 2012, CityHousing spent nearly $5 million to give the decades-old building a major facelift after an engineering report found the complex had serious structural problems, like concrete in unit ceilings crumbling. It's unclear if repairs included electrical work.

Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com