Crews are addressed water and smoke damage at Samaritan Place, following a fire at the supportive housing facility on Sunday, June 16. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

displaced

Some residents poised to return to Nanaimo supportive housing facility following fire

Jun 17, 2024 | 1:28 PM

NANAIMO — A day after a key south Nanaimo social housing complex was fully evacuated due to a fire, some residents are expected to move back in shortly.

Nanaimo Fire Rescue responded to a structure fire at Samaritan Place at 702 Nicol St. on Sunday, June 16 just before 6 a.m., said assistant chief Troy Libbus.

He said a mattress was ignited by a cigarette in a third-floor unit.

“Once everything was evacuated and the fire was out, we did a primary search to make sure everyone was out of the building, that was successful. There were no injuries,” Libbus told NanaimoNewsNOW.

This mattress was sparked by a cigarette, leading to a structure fire at Samaritan Place on Nicol St. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

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He said the third-floor sprinkler did its job by slowing down the fire’s growth.

Operated by Island Crisis Care Society (ICCS), 51 residents and about half a dozen on-site employees fled the building, noted the agency’s Corrie Corfield.

Impacted residents were taken to Bowen Park Complex as ICCS staff then transitioned people to other temporary homes, most of them being available ICCS spaces at other sites, Corfield said.

After originally projecting a return for some residents later on Monday, Corfield expects the transition will happen the following day.

Water and smoke damage is an issue currently being addressed by a restoration company, with the bottom three floors impacted, Corfield said.

“That water has actually made its way through the third floor and then down into some of our rooms in the second floor and then our office and common space on the first floor, so our team is just assessing that,” Corfield said.

Corfield said their most negatively impacted residents reside on the same floor where the fire started.

“The third floor in Samaritan Place is actually where we house our complex care residents, people that require additional medical support – those were the people that were most affected.”

Corfield said she couldn’t comment on how ICCS intends to respond to how the fire started.

Samaritan Place is a smoke-free environment, with several warning signs placed on the building’s exterior.

“It’s a challenge and probably any landlord in town can tell you that’s a similar challenge that’s based around any rental properties or any properties where people are living, so (it’s) no different for us.”

While Samaritan Place is a smoke-free facility, a cigarette caused a fire displacing the building’s 51 residents (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

Damage and complications caused by flooding is something ICCS is all too familiar with following a water pipe leak at the agency’s Bowen Rd. warming centre in January temporarily shutting the service down.

Samaritan Place opened in March 2022, representing the first of several permanent supportive and affordable housing complexes pledged by the province and City of Nanaimo during a 2020 Memorandum of Understanding.

The facility includes 51 studio suites for the unhoused, as well as several units dedicated to vulnerable women.

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Ian.holmes@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes