A fire has gutted a home at Neyashinigmiing.
The blaze happened Tuesday (Aug 3rd) and destroyed a house built by Habitat For Humanity a handful of years ago.
One person was home at the time and they were not injured.
A father and son had been living there. According to a fundraiser, the father was not at home because he was in the hospital at the time, but the son was home, and was able to escape safely with their four pets.
A Go Fund Me page has been set up called “Help The LaValley Family Recover From Fire” It has a goal of $5,000 to help address their immediate needs such as clothing, food, emergency housing, transportation, and other immediate needs. As of 7 p.m. Thursday August 5th, the page had raised over $3,800.
Habitat for Humanity Grey Bruce Executive Director Greg Fryer says his organization is willing to help rebuild.
Fryer says those decisions, including when that would start, lie with the First Nation “It all depends on the band, they have insurance involved so they have to go through that process. Further investigation that the fire chief needs to take the lead on, before anything would even be touched at the site right now.”
Fryer says in terms of possible causes of the blaze, the house, like all Habitat houses was inspected (including electrical) when it was built in 2018, and thoroughly inspected by another company used by the First Nation the same way any municipality uses a building inspector. “Both First Nations, Saugeen First Nation and Chippewas of Nawash, all their new housing is inspected. They have an independent inspector who inspects the houses that are built either by Habitat or by other builders from the foundation phases right through to framing right through until the end,” says Fryer.
Habitat Grey Bruce currently has four other houses under construction on the same crescent. Over the past few years, they’ve built twelve houses in the 19-lot development, (not including the four under construction). Fryer says back in 2017, they built a pilot project house on a different street.
The Nawash builds are the first collaboration between Habitat and a First Nation in Ontario.