After the two-alarm fire that engulfed a Shotwell Street senior home and burnt out its top floor last Monday night, six senior residents are in limbo, waiting to be transferred to other care facilities, according to the seniors’ caretaker.
“Social workers have sent out their profiles to other residential care facilities, and if that person reviews [it] and has an opening, they will take them,” said Mae Clark, the main caretaker at the former Lorne House facility on Shotwell Street. She didn’t know which care facilities would be interviewing residents, as social services is responsible for placement.
The six residents were initially put in a hotel by the city’s Human Services Agency, according to Emergency Services Coordinator Ben Amyes, who said all residents would be assisted into another care facility when possible.
Now it seems they are being helped, though Clark is unsure how quickly they’ll be placed.
“They’re still under our care, so we’re going to book a hotel for tonight and the next two days,” she said. “But it depends on the provider who is accepting them. If this [provider] comes and decides that she wants [a resident], she’ll say she’s going to accept that person.”
Clark added that one of the six had been transferred to another Lorne House facility run by the Clark family, but that she simply has no other beds available city-wide.
“I just don’t have a building,” she said. “If I could get a building, I’d do it right now. But I don’t have a bed, and I don’t have a building.”
In the meantime, the residents stay in a facility with Clark family staff during the day and at a hotel at night.
“My staff is with them when they’re in the hotel at night time,” said Stephanie Clark, another caretaker. “And they’re in another facility in the daytime.”
She added that the damage to their Lorne House home on Shotwell is too extensive for them to return.
“We have a sufficient amount of damage,” she said, “I don’t know when things would be so that they could return or not. Right now, the most important thing is making sure that they have somewhere to live.”
Her son, James Griffin, said it might be one to two years before the building is ready again, and that it depends on their insurance. Firefighters said the damage to the top floor was extensive.
Mae Clark added that the fire wasn’t a big concern for residents, some of whom she’s known for as long as 27 years.
“It has not bothered them,” she said. “I’ve known most of them for a long time, the fire didn’t bother them. They’re not worried about that at all. As long as they’re with familiar faces that they’re seeing that they know.”
Mission Local has not spoken to any residents, and Clark said they were not “verbal enough” to speak given their old age.
Eight people were displaced from the Monday, August 24, fire. In addition to the six seniors being housed, two people next door whose building suffered some fire damage and extensive water damage were taken care of by the Red Cross after the fire. City officials believed they had returned to their building, but Mission Local has been unable to confirm this.