Welland Fire fundraiser

The debris is still being cleared at the scene of a devastating fire in Welland last week, and 12 people are looking for a place to live.   But the community is rallying.

You can see there’s nothing left of this former rooming house, it caught fire last Thursday in the early morning hours.   And at some point during the day the walls just collapsed. The fire chief said the fire was so intense when they arrived that firefighters couldn’t get control. They had to concentrate on keeping neighbouring buildings safe, and just let the fire burn itself out. Eventually, a wrecking crew was brought in to make sure there were no more flareups. Still no official cause given. The 12 people living here got out OK but now they are homeless with no possessions and they’re having a tough time finding new, equally affordable places to live.

One of the tenants was Jason Crate. His brother Eric is now raising money and collecting other donations for those victims: “He woke up to smoke. He’d just gone to bed and everyone was screaming smoke and fire and he grabbed his dog and ran outside. It’s sad. It’s another old building in Welland lost to fire. That number six or seven now. A historic building that’s gone. The owner Pete, he bought it there last year, dumped a bunch of money into it, made it a nice little rooming place. Had everything updated. It was a shocker, it was a nice place, he was turning it into a nice place. In five-and-a-half hours on Thursday we had 200 supporters. We have 8 or 10 volunteers coming out and a place to hold it. It just started out for my brother. But the support coming out from Halton Region, from Peel Region, from Kitchener-Waterloo, people are coming from all over to try and help these people out. People are giving furniture, clothes. We’re making up totes for hygiene products. Eric was crying looking at the amount of support people are giving him. We thought ‘why not do it for everybody’. Give everybody a fresh start.”

Bands will play on February 8th at the Blue Star in Welland Firefighters were able to salvage the victims mobility scooter. For details, go to the XDL FIRE BENEFIT link in Facebook. They’re six victims still in a hotel, some in homeless shelter, some with family. They’re meeting daily but it’s hard to find apartments.