Lives changed forever after motel fire
Douglas Nendick packed his life into a suitcase and set it by the door before dozing off Friday afternoon. When he awoke to the smoke alarm blaring at the Highland Motel in Penticton, he didn’t have time to drag the bag outside before flames ripped through his room and stripped it bare.
Standing in the parking lot with only the shorts he’d been wearing, his mind kept going back to that suitcase.
“They let me back in to see if anything was left and there wasn’t even a pair of socks. The suitcase had everything in it, it was big. And all that was left was a little black bundle.”
It had been filled with all of his clothes and possessions, but those can be replaced, unlike the photos of his children.
“You can buy a new shirt, that’s easy,” Nendick said, tugging at the neckline of a T-shirt he purchased with money from Emergency Social Services. “But you can never get back an old life.” That sense of loss is shared by many of the motel’s longtime residents, most of whom spent the weekend in the Penticton Community Centre gym.
Nendick was already planning to move to Princeton to live with family when the fire occurred. But many of his neighbours were permanent residents of the Highland Motel and will need to find new homes when provincial emergency funding for the temporary shelter runs out today.
“I’m lucky. My ride’s coming in the morning and taking me away,” Nendick said Monday.
“But there’s some people here who, come tomorrow, don’t have anywhere, it’s all up in the air for them.”
As of Monday afternoon, the man leading the response on behalf of the City of Penticton didn’t have any answers for the evacuees, either.
“They are the have-nots of our community, and, unfortunately, they have a very difficult time finding a place to stay and live based on affordability and a number of other reasons,” said Fire Chief Larry Watkinson, who’s responsible for the city’s emergency planning.
Besides a miniscule vacancy rate, the city is also swollen with summer tourists, meaning virtually every hotel and motel is already full.
As a last resort, the city established the group shelter Friday at the community centre, where guests were provided cots, three meals a day and a place to store their possessions. Eighteen of the 30 fire evacuees registered at the makeshift reception centre, where seven volunteers from Emergency Support Services – whom Watkinson described as “angels” – have been catering to their needs and providing security, but it’s not a long-term solution, as the community gym is booked for various summer camps.
Watkinson spent the weekend reaching out to churches and social agencies in an attempt to find homes for 14 people who still need them, but to no avail.
“We’re continuing to work with our contacts with the local authorities, but I think this is larger scale where we really need to rely back on the province,” he said.
BC Housing, the provincial agency responsible
I’m lucky. My ride’s coming in the morning and taking me away. But there’s some people here who, come tomorrow, don’t have anywhere, it’s all up in the air for them.
Douglas Nendick
for co-ordinating emergency housing, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Due to the long weekend, the city was able to get an extra day beyond the usual 72 hours of emergency funding. Watkinson hopes he can buy more time and that a meeting today with the Red Cross and other local service groups results in a solution.
“Maybe we can apply for another (funding) extension. Maybe we can do more as a city,” he said. “I just don’t know.”
The cause of the fire at the Highland Motel on Burnaby Avenue has been deemed suspicious.
The owner of the property, who had already ordered the residents out, intends to demolish the buildings to make way for a new development.