Amherst fire victims meet with landlord
CBC News
Posted: Aug 28, 2012 9:57 AM AT
Last Updated: Aug 28, 2012 2:39 PM AT
Fire crews remain at Amherst fire that started Sunday (Kevin Harvey/CBC)
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The 37 people left homeless in a fire in an Amherst apartment building met with their landlord at noon today to receive rent refunds and get back damage deposits.
Anne Villeneuve told the CBC's Kevin Harvey she's not sure what she and her husband, Anthony Goodwin, will do next.
"We lost everything in the house. There's nothing…we don't have insurance or nothing. Basically we have nowhere to live," said Villeneuve.
None of the tenants living in the building had apartment insurance, according to the Candian Red Cross.
"From our assessments we've done, no known clients have had insurance coverage," said Angie Lohnes, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.
"Therefore support has been tremendous with community members stepping up and offering donations, landlords coming in and apprising us of other rental properties that have opened. So of our 37 clients that have registered last night in our shelter, we have four, so the majority of them have found other accommodations."
The Red Cross is hoping to have accomodations today for the last four people who were displaced by the fire, Lohnes said.
Several of the tenants in the Victoria Arms apartment building lost pets in the fire, others have lost important medications.
Several buildings — including a Dooly's pool hall and an Amherst police building —were affected by the fire, which began around 10 p.m. Sunday night in a four-storey building in Amherst's downtown.
An excavator arrived at the site Monday afternoon to knock down the building gutted by fire.
Fire officials have the fire under control, but were still on the scene Tuesday morning where the rubble has been smoldering since the building was demolished.
There's still no word on the fire's cause, which investigators believe began in the basement.
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