Some residents to return to downtown apartment complex after dramatic fire
City says 49 residents needed temporary shelter Thursday night
The City of Windsor says some residents of Wheelton Manor, a community housing apartment complex, can return home after a dramatic Thursday fire.
The city says that residents on floors one through five are able to go back to the building, with some exceptions. The building has no hot water, the city says.
A seventh-floor fire originally displaced residents on the top levels of the Glengarry Avenue building on Thursday. On Friday morning, officials said residents of all 136 units had been evacuated.
An emergency shelter was set up at the WFCU Centre to help those without a place to stay. On Thursday night, 49 residents, five dogs and one cat were sheltered.
Transit Windsor is providing shuttle service for tenants to and from the WFCU Centre and the Homelessness and Housing Help Hub until until 9 p.m.
The city says that those on floors six, seven and eight will be out of their homes until further notice.
The chief tenant services officer with the Windsor-Essex Community Housing Corporation, Nolan Goyette, said floor six could be ready for tenants to return in the "near interim," but floors seven and eight would need more time before tenants could return due to "significant" fire, smoke and water damage.
"A lot of our tenants are staying with friends and family. We're going to have to look at alternatives."
With a limited number of social housing units in the city, Goyette said he's unsure what the ripple effect of the fire and resulting damage will be at this time.
But the city's commissioner of human and health services said he expects the impact to available affordable housing to be negligible.
Andrew Daher said he also expected residents of the lower five levels of Wheelton Manor would be allowed back inside soon.
"We've done such a fantastic job of getting people into housing very quickly ... honestly, we'll get through the weekend ... and then we'll assess it from there," he said.
"I think it's going to be fairly quick. The numbers aren't going to be that significant. I don't anticipate this temporary shelter being open that long."
Dennis Strumpf woke up Friday morning inside a gymnasium at the WFCU Centre, instead of his downtown Windsor apartment building.
He's one of dozens of residents who were displaced because of Thursday's fire on Glengarry Avenue.
WATCH | Chaotic fire scene at downtown Windsor apartment building:
City of Windsor and Red Cross staff remain on site to assist the displaced residents, such as Strumpf, who lives on the building's 8th floor.
"It started off that we had a peculiar odour coming through the apartment itself, so I was like, 'What's going on?,' so I looked out the top of my balcony … and you could see it billowing out from the seventh floor," said Strumpf.
"The fire department got all over that in a heartbeat. They got it put out and cleaned up quickly."
Strumpf said he's happy his cat was able to make the trip with him to the makeshift shelter set up by the city. He's satisfied with the care being offered, calling staff "very accommodating" and "very friendly."
He said it's better than being on the street, where he's lived before.
According to city staff, 11 people were assessed by emergency services at the scene, and five people, including a firefighter with a lower extremity injury, were taken to hospital for "further minor treatment."
The Office of the Ontario Fire Marshal is leading the investigation into the cause and origin of the fire.