Four people homeless
after Dutch Quarter fire
~ Second blaze in three months leaves father, son on streets again ~
DUTCH QUARTER--Four people were left homeless Monday after a mysterious fire consumed their shared Dutch Quarter apartment building, sparing only a few of their possessions and leaving them on the streets.
It is not known how or where in the apartments the fire started, but two of the residents were in the building at Nazareth Drive #16 when smoke began wafting out of the windows and drawing the attention of neighbours. At least two of the tenants had been left homeless in the past three months during the worst fire of this year, the only other major blaze at an apartment building.
Fire fighters were able to put out the blaze within an hour, but the difficult path to the part-plywood, part-concrete building made much of it unsalvageable. When the smoke settled, charred galvanized zinc roofing was hanging low to the floor and the wood columns were burned black and barely holding the ceiling.
The building’s owner was in shock while she watched fire fighters go about extinguishing the blaze that incinerated appliances, house wares, furniture and bedding in the apartments that two adults and two children shared. She said her intention was to rebuild on the site at some point. However, R.O.B. had not yet inspected the building at that time, so it was not certain whether the building’s concrete infrastructure, which remained largely intact, would be allowed to stay.
Haitian immigrant Genes Moises was near tears watching the burnt husk of a building he had called home until yesterday morning. “I no call him yet,” said Moises of his son, who was in classes at Sundial School.
A fellow tenant of the apartment building – described as a Jamaican lady – woke this security guard from sleep just hours after he had finished a late-night shift at 7:00am and warned him of the fire. The woman was not on the scene when The Daily Herald arrived. The fire started at approximately 11:00am.
Moises and his son had just recently moved into the new building after being left homeless following another Dutch Quarter fire in March that devoured about six units in a two-floor apartment building, leaving an estimated 14 persons homeless.
Official figures from the Red Cross later showed that 22 people, including three infants and a teenager, had been left homeless and had registered for aid.
Moises, a security guard, hopes to petition government for assistance in this case, saying his last attempt to retrieve his official documents that had gone up in flames had been unsuccessful. “All my documents inside there [in government records], they tell me I just want next documents,” said Moises, noting that political situations involving people leaving his home country had made it difficult for Haitians around the world.
The Red Cross had not been informed of the fire and this newspaper received grim news when contacting the non-profit relief group about its usual role in aiding fire and disaster victims. “Since the last fire, they [store merchants] have frozen our accounts; we can’t buy anything,” a representative said of the current situation with the Red Cross.
