Moncton firefighters returned to the House of Nazareth homeless shelter on Clark Street.
Platoon Chief Charlie Melanson says they returned to the scene this morning at around 7am, to put out some hot spots that had flared up.
This comes after a fire yesterday afternoon caused extensive damage.
Executive Director Jean Dube says there was no one in the building at the time, because they had all recently moved over to the new shelter on Albert Street.
He says their hope was to begin construction to convert the Clark Street shelter to transitional housing, “It would’ve opened up some rooms for people looking for apartments or a place to live. This type of transitional housing would be a room, with a common area for a common kitchen and place to do your laundry and watch TV.”
Dube says the fire really puts a damper on things for now.
He adds, they had helped people in the Clark Street location for the past 40 years, “There’s a lot of history in that building, a lot of archives and pictures, Hopefully we can recuperate some of the stuff. We lost quite a bit of clothing as well. Jeans, jackets and underwear, socks. Stuff that we keep there when people come in, we give them a set of clothing.”
The fire is currently under investigation by RCMP and Moncton Fire.
“I’m going to be providing the camera system that was still working(during the fire on Tuesday). Hopefully we can get something out of that,” Dube says.
(Video: submitted by Wade Perry)
