An official with the Thunder Bay Fire and Rescue believes illegal rooming houses in the city are going to be a growing problem.
Police and fire crews responded to a call last Thursday at the former First Church United on Brock Street where they discovered people living in the building. The fire department then shut the building down and took over security because it is alleged the building had been operating as an illegal rooming house.
“We felt there were safety issues above and beyond the norm,” Thunder Bay Fire and Rescue director of prevention Brian Berringer said. “The building is a church and it wasn’t meant to house people on an overnight basis.”
Every additional person that lives in a building that doesn’t meet the fire code is an added risk to their safety he said.
“This is becoming more and more of an issue as we encounter more and more people that are homeless,” Berringer said. ”They’ll just find anywhere they can to sleep and often they put themselves in a lot of danger doing what they do.
“We see in the economic swing right now where a lot of people are out of work we’re seeing more and more homeless people. We deal with them here every day and in the cold weather months people want to be housed. They want to be safe. So they’re doing everything they can to get off the streets.”
City licensing and enforcement manager Ron Bourret said while he thinks the owner of the building may have had good intentions by letting people stay there, they were actually in danger.
“That’s not the intent of that building you’re actually putting human beings at risk,” Bourret said.
Any building that has four tenants or more is considered a rooming house and needs to be licensed by the city. And proper zoning is required, something that the former church doesn’t have right now. The city then makes sure a rooming house complies with everything from fire codes to how many sinks the place has.
“These must be healthy environments for people,” Bourret said.
Bourret said he’s not even sure the former church could be amended to become a rooming house. But the city has been receiving complaints from neighbours about increased activity around the building, and that as many as 20 people were living there.
“I understand parking became a problem for the local community. Noise levels were raised, different people coming in and out,” Bourret said. “This impacts your residential area.”
George Jeffry Centre CEO Eiji Tsubouchi, whose building is across the street from the former church, said he does have concerns about the increased activity in the neighbourhood. And things came to a head last week when police and fire showed up to evict the illegal tenants.
“Our clients and their families were very concerned with all the commotion and all the police across the street,” he said.
Tsubouchi said because the centre’s clients are disabled children, there are concerns from staff about their safety.
“I have a great concern for their safety should anything happen.”
Berringer said fire continues to monitor the building. The people removed from the building are all being housed elsewhere he said. An investigation continues.
Attempts have been made to contact people involved with the building.
