Officials with ICE District said Monday that it would, along with the province and Homeward Trust, help current residents of MacDonald Lofts to find housing elsewhere.

ICE District Joint Venture made the announcement in a news release Monday, and said current residents of the building were given a relocation notice that day giving them a year to find another place to live.

A number of residents expected to be asked to leave, but were expecting to be given little notice.

“There was so much debate on how much longer we’d end up staying here, so now I know,” resident Pat Lloyd said.

In August, 2016, Alberta Health Services has declared a number of the units to be unfit for human habitation due to a number of public health issues.

Later in the year, ICE District acquired the property, and an evaluation of the building has found it is a condition found to be detrimental to the health and safety of those living there.

Despite the building’s condition, some said they were still sad and worried about having to leave.

“With the money I get from social assistance I can afford to live here, to move to another place it’ll cost quite a bit,” resident Shirley Cameron said.

The organization said it will work with the province and Homeward Trust to help as many residents as needed until everyone living there has found a new place to live – each resident will receive a package including items like a furniture package, cleaning of personal items, return or transfer of the damage deposition, delivery of essentials and transportation to a new location.

“Definitely, there’s a shortage of affordable housing in our community so that’s going to be a challenge, but it’s something we work at every day,” Susan McGee with Homeward Trust Edmonton said.

As for future plans for the building, they’re still unclear, as the building has historical designation it can’t be torn down.

“We’re trying to determine the building condition, because we still have probably 65, 70 percent of the building occupied by tenants,” Glenn B. Scott with the Katz Group said. “So once we have all the tenants vacated, we’ll then have a chance to look at what’s happening physically in the units and we can make a plan about what next steps are.”

With files from Nicole Weisberg