THUNDER BAY – Arson is suspected as a portable toilet placed outside the Shelter House to lend dignity to homeless people has burned down in less than a month.
Shelter House was evacuated at 2 a.m. Thursday. When fire crews arrived on scene, the outdoor toilet had melted to the ground and a conjoint shed was ablaze.
The fire also burned a lawnmower, a propane tank, a can of gasoline and tools for the homeless shelter’s community garden.
“This fire has come out of left field,” said Shelter House executive director, Gary Mack.
Mack said the toilet had improved relationships between businesses in the neighbourhood and Shelter House clients.
Where he had been receiving daily complaints before the toilet was installed regarding human fesces on public and private property in the South Core, he hadn’t received a single such call since the toilet's installation.
He doubts his clients would have lit the fire, as they all benefit from the toilet and the contents of the shed.
“There’s such a stigma about homeless people,” Mack said.
“People say about our community garden, we could never have a community garden here because it would be destroyed and that’s really a stigma about our population but when you give people respect and you give them something they have ownership over, they respect it.”
A Thunder Bay Police Service spokesman said the investigation is ongoing.
