As the last remaining tenants of a 14-storey Regent Park building slated for demolition on Monday heaved their belongings into moving trucks on Friday, Candice McGowan said she and her two children are staying put.

Since February 2013, the 36-year-old single mother has been fighting eviction by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation for allegedly having “multiple loaded guns in her unit” and owing rent up to $2,500, according to TCHC spokesperson Sara Goldvine.

Since McGowan is no longer a “tenant in good standing,” McGowan says the TCHC has refused to relocate her to a different apartment — even temporarily, while the eviction hearings proceed through the Landlord and Tenant Board.

And so she, and her daughter Keanna 15, and son Johvon 13, are the only ones left, still occupying the three-bedroom apartment in the 14 Blevins Place building where they have lived since 2003.

McGowan, who claims there is no basis for the eviction, says they have no choice but to stay.

“We don’t have a Plan B. We would be homeless,” she says.

It will cost $10,000 per day to have demolition equipment and contractors sitting idle and waiting to work, the TCHC development director for Regent Park revitalization testified at a tribunal hearing on Sept. 25, according to a letter sent to McGowan Friday by TCHC lawyers.

“In addition to any financial impact, the lives of hundreds of tenants will be affected if the redevelopment project is delayed,” the letter continues.

Goldvine said that on Monday the contractors will still be able to prepare the demolition of 605 Whiteside Place and the nearby townhouses, part of Phase 3 of the Regent Park revitalization that includes new condo buildings, social housing units and athletic grounds.

But the next eviction hearing date cannot be until December at the earliest, Goldvine said.

Goldvine did say Friday that the TCHC is “prepared to move Ms. McGowan immediately if she will agree that the proceedings currently at the (tribunal) will transfer with her so that the hearings can continue.”

But both McGowan and her lawyer Susan Von Achten say this is the first they are hearing of such an offer — despite past requests to that effect. The offer has not been made to them, Von Achten confirmed Friday night.

“It is insane to waste $10,000 of taxpayers’ money a day when they could re-house someone for a matter of maybe $1,000 … until such time as the Landlord and Tenant Board can determine whether or not she is to be evicted,” said Von Achten Friday. “And if she is to be evicted then that’s the end of it.”

McGowan says she had no knowledge of any criminal activity in her apartment. The three handguns (two loaded) were allegedly seized from a bedroom dresser and gym bag by police after a drugs and firearms-related search warrant was executed in February 2013. McGowan alleges the guns belonged to her now ex-boyfriend Otis McLeod, who faces 22 firearms charges.

McLeod is set to stand trial on Oct. 14, when his lawyer is expected to file for abuse of process or argue the search warrant should be tossed out, according to court documents. According to McGowan’s affidavit in the tribunal proceedings and court documents filed by the Crown, McLeod told police that McGowan had no knowledge of the guns.

“I hate guns,” McGowan said, sitting in her apartment where memorials to Tyson Bailey feature prominently on the walls. Her children were close friends with Bailey, a 15-year-old boy shot dead in a Regent Park highrise, she said.

McGowan also maintains that she did not misrepresent her income as alleged by the TCHC, which claims McLeod was living with her for a period of time in 2012. She says McLeod was living with his mother in Scarborough, and would stay the night occasionally.

She did let him stay in the apartment to “nurse him back to health” for a few months after he was shot in the leg on their doorstep on Jan. 6, 2012, she says in her affidavit. During this time he gave her no money, she said.

After July 2012 he was able to work again, and only stay over occasionally, her affidavit states. In this time he began a relationship with another woman, who became pregnant, unbeknownst to McGowan, her affidavit states.

McGowan has no criminal record (she was acquitted of firearms charges and dangerous driving in 2010) and currently faces a charge of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence for allegedly trafficking marijuana. She maintains she is innocent of the charge, laid during the Project Rx raids in May.

McGowan says she doesn’t want to leave the Regent Park area, where her children have access to the programs they need and are well settled in their schools.

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Her current apartment on the ground floor is also partially accessible for her children’s father, quadriplegic since January 2006 and living in a care facility, she says.

There is still power and running water in the building, though she does not know for how long. She says the building security cameras were taken down on Thursday.

At the start of the hearings 19 months ago, which have been plagued by delays from both sides, she said she joked: “It’ll be a fight, I’ll be here till the wrecking ball comes. But now it’s my reality.”