City housing looking into Hess Street fire

A fire at a city housing building over the weekend displaced two residents, and impacted several others.

Fire ripped through the fifth and sixth floor balconies at a city housing apartment building on Hess Street Saturday and many who live in the building were already in a fragile situation before the fire. One legally blind tenant resorted to spending a night on the street because his apartment smelt too strongly of smoke.

One resident says he wouldn’t have anything if the fire had spread to his unit.

But although only two units were directly impacted by the fire several others had smoke damage.

Robert Barnhardt lives on the seventh floor. He was told he could stay in his apartment right after the fire, but the smell of smoke was overwhelming for him.

On Sunday he was brought to tears, telling CHCH News about the night he spent on the street, because he couldn’t handle the smoke and soot in his unit.

City housing did not ask him if he needed any help.

City housing CEO Tom Hunter wouldn’t talk to us on camera today, but he maintains that on the day of the fire someone from city housing asked residents, including Barnhardt, if they needed help. But Barnhardt says he only received a phone call from housing after CHCH started asking questions. In that call, city housing told him he could have accessed an after hours crisis line if needed.

We tried to ask property manager Shauna Wheeler if residents were offered help, but she hung up on us.

At the end of the day, all Barnhardt wants is someone to talk with about his concerns.

“If nothing else they should have sent someone in to talk to us, to see how we are feeling, to deal with the trauma.”

Barnhardt says city housing told him late this afternoon that it was going to bring in a crisis support team.