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Low-income tenants near Rogers Place say they’ve won the fight against a planned 50-per-cent rent hike that threatened to leave some residents homeless.

Pat Lloyd, who has lived in the 102-year-old Heritage building for 11 years, found a note tacked to his door Friday saying a planned $300 rent increase has been cancelled.

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“I was so ecstatic. It was unbelievable,” Lloyd said.

The 91-unit, four-storey building in the shadow of the new ice arena has been a reprieve from street life for many people with mental health and addictions problems, and others relying on government subsidies to get by.

The converted warehouse is in rough shape. The hallways have stripped bare concrete floors, graffiti, and holes in the drywall. Some tenants say their windows won’t close, and some apartment walls haven’t been painted in more than a decade.

Last week, Alberta Health Services inspectors declared six of the units unfit for human habitation, and ordered the tenants to leave two occupied suites. Inspectors found bedding infested with bedbugs, feces, and smashed cupboards and walls.