This Windsorite has been displaced twice since 2022. This time, he hopes his home is permanent
A resident of 333 Glengarry Avenue who was displaced, along with his two dogs, by the fire last week was also put out of his housing when a similar situation unfolded at 1616 Ouellette at the end of 2022.
"This is the second time I've been through this," Jarrod Lefler told the CBC.
"I know the city's working its hardest, but there's a lot of unknowns."
Up until Tuesday, Lefler called the eighth floor of Wheelton Manor home. He's been out of the building since Thursday, when a fire caused some major damage on the seventh floor.
He, along with the others on his floor and the seventh floor, had been sleeping and eating at the WFCU centre since then.
"There was smoke everywhere and I couldn't even see across the hall," said Lefler.
A message of hope for residents of 333 Glengarry ave scrawled in Chalk onto a door near an entrance to the temporary shelter at the WFCU centre. (Jacob Barker/CBC)
"I lost my medicine, I left my glasses 'cause we got out," he said. "I was expecting to go back in but they wouldn't let us back in because, obviously, it's just too much damage and you've got to be safe."
It is a situation reminiscent of his stay at an emergency shelter set up by the Red Cross in November of 2022 when the heat and electricity stopped working properly at 1616 Ouellette — although that stay was much longer.
"This was six days but last time it was 30... you know? So I can do six."
CBC News spoke with him at the time and he was concerned about having a place to go.
"I don't think it's fair," he said after finding out they had just a few hours to clear out.
"I have dogs. I'm on disability. I don't have any place to go."
This time around, he says that city staff and Red Cross did a fantastic job at the shelter — taking care of him and his dogs.
"I told the Red Cross guy 'I love you but I never want to see you again,'" he said.
Lefler says he and his dogs are being put up at a new apartment — just a few buildings down at 395 Glengarry. He hopes this time, it's permanent.
"I never want to do this again."
Nowhere to go
Gary Allard says he doesn't know the cause of the fire that broke out in the building but he says it started in his apartment.
"My apartment was the first to go up in flames, then it just spread from there," he said.
He escaped through the building with his dog Scrappy Doo, but he says he wasn't able to find his second dog, Donnie Brasco, before getting out.
"I lost him in the smoke and he passed away," he said.
Allard said he spent three days in the hospital following the fire for smoke inhalation but he feels fine now. He adds that the Windsor-Essex Community Housing Corporation (WECHC) will not be providing him with a new place to live.
"I only have him now and we need a place to live, so any help would be much appreciated," said Allard, who says he was in that apartment for the last four years.
Gary Allard lost one of his dogs in last Thursday's fire and now he's looking for new accommodations after being told that he will not be receiving another unit through WECHC. (Jacob Barker/CBC)
When asked about Allard's case, Nolan Goyette, who is chief tenant services officer for WECHC, said he could not comment on specific cases.
On Tuesday, Goyette said that everybody who stayed at the WFCU Centre and was a client of WECHC would be getting permanent or temporary accommodations until their units could be repaired and those that hadn't checked in yet would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Gary Allard says his apartment on the seventh floor of Wheelton Manor is where the blaze began last Thursday. (Michael Evans/CBC)
However, he did also confirm that there was one resident who would not be receiving accommodation and that a plan had been made with that tenant to go to a shelter.
Allard said he was not able to stay at a shelter in downtown because they don't accept pets.
"I don't know what I'm going to do."
