Tenants left homeless after a fire at the former Traveller’s Inn in Victoria face more uncertainty as officials scramble to house them.
A suspicious fire at the former hotel at 760 Queens Ave. broke out late Sunday, then re-ignited within hours early Monday, sending dozens of tenants back out onto the street and causing nearly $1 million in damage.
Victoria Fire Chief Paul Bruce said Tuesday the fire was deliberately set. Victoria Police are investigating. About 60 of the 85 units were rented and about 57 tenants are in need of accommodation.
Emergency social services from Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and Langford were trying to help the city find places for the tenants to stay.
A Gathering of Voices, a national aboriginal youth convention, has brought thousands of people to the region, making it next to impossible to secure accommodations, Bruce said. “We are really limited in what we can do to accommodate these people looking for group lodging,” said Bruce, adding Our Place, B.C. Housing and the Ministry of Social Services are aiding in the search. “It’s been going crazy here today.”
Emergency Management B.C. has extended its 72-hour emergency social services assistance, likely through the weekend, Bruce said. Meanwhile, emergency workers are looking for any and all shelter.
About 10 tenants, mostly with disabilities, were sent to Paul’s Motor Inn on Monday night, while others had to make do with area shelters or whatever else they could find.
Joe McEachern, 60, spent Monday night sleeping on a mat on the floor of a downtown church and said he doesn’t want to do that again. “I want a proper room.”
Another man said he bunked at his brother’s place and is still wearing the clothes he fled the building in.
Powell Jonsson, 54, said he’s worried the upheaval and time to move his belongings at short notice might cost him the job he recently began.
The men were among a crowd of tenants who met at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gymnasium on Quadra Street on Tuesday evening to hear what happens next.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said in a phone interview the region will likely have to come together to help the displaced tenants. “What it really illustrates for me is in any fire, in any building, how quickly we’re all potentially one step away from homelessness.”
Helps said accommodation is full in both the former Boys and Girls club, which is temporarily housing about 40 people who are homeless, and Mount Edwards, which is housing 38 formerly homeless people for a year.
“It really is going to take the region coming together to house these folks even temporarily.”
Rick Barnes, 60, has been off work for about a decade with a spinal-cord injury and walks with a cane. He stayed at Paul’s Motor Inn on Tuesday night, but wonders if he’ll ever be able to move back to the Traveller’s Inn. At $710 a month in rent for a bachelor suite, it’s all he can afford on his monthly federal disability cheque of $1,075, Barnes said
Richard Mason, manager of building maintenance at the former Traveller’s Inn, was at the hotel on Tuesday to secure the building so tenants’ property is not stolen.
Belfor restoration company was on the scene Tuesday repairing doors and walls that were kicked in or torn apart by firefighters tackling the blaze.
The fire was deliberately set in a truck under a carport at the hotel and travelled through a light-fixture opening to void spaces, including a chimney and elevator shaft.
— With files from Katherine Dedyna
