House fires hit the poor harder
HAMIDOU NANGA wondered if he was still asleep.
It was after 3 a.m. and his family’s south Mountain townhouse was ablaze.
“Is this a dream? What happened?”
Nanga, 42, is still trying to figure that out three months after he, his wife and three kids were burned out of their subsidized unit on Essling Avenue.
The fire department has said the suspected cause is “youth vandalism” — something Nanga has trouble understanding. “Who and why?” The road to recovery has been hard ever since the Dec. 29 blaze.
Homeless, the family opted to stay with friends for a few days. After that, they slept at the Salvation Army for about a week.
All their belongings went up in flames. Nanga says they didn’t have content insurance.
The Red Cross chipped in with $1,000 worth of vouchers the family used to buy the children winter clothes and other items at Winners.
IN JANUARY, they settled in another Kiwanis townhome in Stoney Creek. Nanga says they have a couch, but still need furniture.
Musicians held a fundraising concert for Nanga’s family at This Ain’t Hollywood in February. It helped.
“We are trying to put things together, but it’s still difficult,” said Nanga, whose wife is expecting another child.
Social service agencies say fires can hit the poor harder.
The Red Cross, which provides three days of support to those displaced by fire, helps many clients in Hamilton who are already vulnerable and living on social assistance.
In many cases, the displaced don’t have content insurance, notes Chiran Livera, deputy director of operations, disaster management for the Red Cross.
“If you have to prioritize what you buy, if you buy food, groceries and rent, insurance may not be at the top of your mind, unfortunately.”
Emergency responders in Hamilton call on the Red Cross to help 120 fire victims a year on average.
The volunteer-powered organization meets victims at the curb, providing basic needs in the first 72 hours after a fire — food, clothing, shelter and emotional support.
“If you have to evacuate your house in the middle of the night because of a fire, you’re on the sidewalk with your clothes on your back,” Livera said.
After the 72 hours are up, if families are still homeless, the city’s housing services steps in to fill the gap with hotel accommodations.
In 2016, the city helped 28 people, covering a $15,540.77 bill for 68 nights of shelter.
Nanga is thankful his family wasn’t hurt in the fire. He’s glad to have a new place to live.
But the fire continues to burn a hole in his pocket.
Nanga, an immigrant from Cameroon, makes a living by exporting clothing and cars to Africa.
Two cars — a Mercedes GL and Nissan Altima — were torched along with the Essling townhouse.
Nanga says the blaze started in the Mercedes, which was worth almost $70,000 but not insured for fire damage.
A buyer had already put down a $40,000 deposit on the luxury car after seeing photos of it, he says.
That’s why Nanga ran back into the burning home twice to fetch the keys, thinking he could move both cars from the driveway to safety.
The merchandise destroyed, he has to drum up the cash to return the would-be buyer’s money.
“I have to give (it) back or I have to send the car.”
“We are trying to put things together, but it’s still difficult.” HAMIDOU NANGA ESSLING AVENUE FIRE SURVIVOR
OF COURSE, Nanga saw none of this coming.
The night of the fire, he and his family had gone to a movie. He was the last to go to bed around 1 a.m.
About two hours later, Nanga was rattled from his sleep by knocks on the door and yells to get out.
(The smoke detectors were working but he doesn’t remember hearing them.)
When he awoke in his secondfloor bedroom, Nanga saw smoke and fire licking the windows. He ran to get his sleeping kids. “It was impossible to get out of the front door. A lot of fire was there.”
So he took the screaming children — ages two, three and six — out the back.
Then, Nanga went back for his wife, who was disoriented in the smoky chaos.
Outside, with firefighters now on scene, he was in a daze of disbelief.
“I was trying to figure out what happened. Did I forget something? So many things in my head.”
He sleeps restlessly now.
“When three o’clock comes, I have to wake up to see what’s going on,” Nanga says.
The $300,000 fire was also a blow for Hamilton East Kiwanis NonProfit Homes Inc., which owns the property.
“Our insurance is covered. The unit itself will be rebuilt,” said executive director Brian Sibley.
But the fire still takes a unit out of the rotation during the many months it sits a charred wreck, Sibley said.
“What that means is there’s another family sitting in a shelter.”
The December blaze followed a fire in June that badly gutted one unit and singed another, amounting to $400,000 in damage.
The cause was left undetermined but not believed to be suspicious.
Sibley laments how families without insurance — a “surprisingly” common scenario — end up with nothing.
“They’re devastated. They’re afraid … They could have lost their lives.”
That’s one way fires affect those who live in social housing differently, he says. Nanga speaks like a defeated man. When his children ask what went wrong, a sense of helplessness washes over him.
“And I don’t have an answer,” he says. “It’s so bad to have that kind of feeling in front of your kids.”
Hamilton police are still investigating the fire.