By Sara Ditta
A month after a fire destroyed three apartment buildings at Somerset and Booth Street, victims are regrouping and fundraising continues to help them put their lives back together.
The area where the buildings once stood now resembles a parking lot and previous tenants, like Robin Ackerley, now look toward the future.
Ackerley lived at 290 Booth St., one of the three apartment buildings which burned down on Aug. 16. He is currently staying with his brother but will likely spend the next month crashing on couches, before he finds a new place with two other victims who have been away on vacation, he says.
Ackerley says he mostly misses not having a space of his own and laments losing a number of irreplaceable items in the fire.
“There are things that family would make for me, like my mother and grandmother were quilters, so there are a bunch of really unique items like that that are gone,” he says.
He had collected over 1,000 rare vinyl records that he says he’ll never get back.
He says he is very fortunate because he has a job and family members to rely on. Other victims, many of whom were uninsured, haven’t been so lucky.
The city estimates that 11 people displaced by the fire are still staying at Ottawa emergency shelters.
The number of people affected may also be growing.
Somerset West Community Health Centre resource manager Rosemary Jones says there may be more than 31 people affected by the fire, as was previously believed. She says the number was only an initial count of people on the scene at the time, which didn’t take into account tenants who had been away.
Initial fundraising efforts were handled by the health centre and produced $43,757 in donations to a bank account that closed at the end of August.
Jones says most of that money has already been distributed equally, which has been ongoing since the beginning of September.
There were some initial concerns about correctly identifying the victims, but every effort was made to provide the money in a timely fashion while still being sure of recipients’ identities, she says.
“The fundraising has been crucial,” says Ackerley. “Combined with donations of money and furniture from family and friends, it has ensured that I will land on my feet again.”
Fundraising continued into this month with Blaze-Aid, a community initiative to raise even more money for the fire victims.
Blaze-Aid showcased live music on an open stage on Sept. 15 at six different pubs across the city. Art was also for sale, along with raffles and door prizes to raise more money.
The event was managed by Dan Baker who has raised funds in the past for fire victims, but never to this magnitude.
“I think it’s a very, very unique thing that you have a series of other communities all coming together to support another which had a disaster,” Baker says.
There was also a personal connection to the tragedy for some event organizers. One musician who regularly plays at one of the host pubs lost his home in the fire and another who played at the event lost all of his equipment, says Baker.
With performances ranging from a high school band to retired musicians and donations raised nearly $5,000 in one day.
The cause of the fire still has yet to be determined, but nothing has been ruled out and it is still under investigation, says Mike Haarbosch of the Ottawa police arson section.
“It’s all just stuff, right?” Ackerley says. “I lost a whole bunch of stuff, but I still have all my family and friends and I’m in perfect health.”