New windows in BC Housing apartments

By Dan Hilborn
Published July 22, 2006


Three years after Harry Kierans leaped to his death out the windows of his 14th-floor suite in the Hall Towers at Kingsway and Edmonds, B.C. Housing is halfway through a $4.6-million program of installing safer, smaller and more energy-efficient windows in the two highrise apartment buildings.

"This is part of our modernization and improvement program," said Sam Rainboth, manager of public affairs for the government agency that provides social housing and rental subsidies for an estimated 67,000 households across the province.

While the window replacement program was "not directly related" to Kierans' suicide on July 25, 2003, the "safety of residents was a consideration," Rainboth said.

"The windows were in need of replacement," Rainboth said. Although the original windows met the building code when the towers were originally built - the first tower went up in 1972 and the second was completed five years later - they had developed water leaks and were requiring an increased amount of maintenance.

The new smaller windows are double paned and have stronger frames, and will also result in energy cost savings, he said, adding that one of the buildings has more than 300 separate windows.

Family members of Harry Kierans, who have been fighting for smaller windows in the buildings, said the replacement program is a cause of mixed emotions.

"Seeing the building being retrofitted with safe window units, I had a mixture of deep sadness and relief," said Harry's sister Mae Kierans, a Catholic nun. "Sadness that the retrofit was too late for my dear brother Harry, but relief for the other persons suffering from mental illness who still live there."

Kierans also told the Burnaby NOW that she was shocked when she first saw the large, old windows in the Hall Towers.

"Walking into his apartment days after his death, with the huge gaping window still wide open and the curtains still flapping out, I experienced vertigo," she said. "I could have fallen out myself from dizziness if I went near the windows to close them, so I stayed away from them. Any child could have fallen out, the ledges were so low.

"Why would anyone assign persons suffering from mental illness to such a death trap?"

Mae and Harry's other sister, lawyer Kathleen Walker, have been calling for a formal coroner's inquest into their brother's death for the past three years.

In a July 23, 2005 story published in the Burnaby NOW, the two sisters said that a lack of government services and a slow-moving bureaucracy were two key factors behind the suicide.

After filing a series of freedom of information requests to obtain their brother's government records, Harry's sisters received a stack of documents measuring more than 22-cm thick including several memos that indicate Harry had made several requests to move out of the Hall Tower in the months leading up to his suicide.

The sisters found that Harry and his wife, who suffered from bipolar disorder, had also received several threats of eviction from the building manager due to their inability to keep their apartment clean. The files also indicate that the couple had lost the services of a home support worker in 1999.

The most upsetting aspect of the reports was a memo indicating that a decision had been made to return the home support worker to Harry and his wife in the week prior to his suicide.

Also included in the documents was a "confidential issues note" dated Jan. 16, 2004 and presented to then-health minister Colin Hansen that gives the following summary of the original B.C. Coroner's report into Harry's death. "The (coroner's) report contains no recommendations, but it does highlight the serious issues relating to apparent systemic failures in providing care that was appropriate and well-coordinated among agencies, i.e. B.C. Housing, to meet the client's particular needs."

Mae Kierans continues to press her case for a formal investigation into the circumstances around her brother's death and has asked for assistance from Burnaby-Edmonds MLA Raj Chouhan, who was recently appointed the NDP critic for mental health.