Rupert Hotel Fire 33 years Later - Finally Some Progress on Reform

 

Friday December 23rd. 2022 marks the thirty-third anniversary of the Rupert Hotel fire and the loss of ten lives.

I attended a memorial service for the twentieth anniversary in 2009 at 182 Parliament Street.

Michael Shapcott speaks at 2009 event

Since that time, I’ve tried to reflect on this horrible event and the lack of progress in addressing the need for safe and affordable housing in Ontario.  

In the years following the tragedy, about 500 units of Toronto housing were created or upgraded to meet or exceed the already existing standards. Not long after a commemorative plaque was installed (read the plaque at https://www.readtheplaque.com/plaque/rupert-hotel-fire) noting that the fire "sparked action by municipal and provincial governments and community organizations to improve conditions in rooming houses."  The funding that supported the upgrades and advocacy soon ended. 

There has not been much good to report since then.  Three years aback I wrote a poem where I was cynical about austerity policies that meant progress would ever be made in addressing the lessons learned from the fire.

Well I was wrong, so it seems.

Earlier this month the City of Toronto approved a regulatory framework that beginning March 2024 will allow tenants to rent in areas of Toronto where they are currently restricted.  There will be a citywide licensing system that should go a long way in making this form of housing safer.

Rooming houses, now known as multi-tenant houses, are the only option for many in the extremely unaffordable private market in Toronto and all over Ontario for that matter.

“I’ll be honest with you, I have tried 12 times – 12 times! – to get to this vote over the course of the last 14 years,” said Councillor. Gord Perks (Parkdale—High Park), told the Toronto Star. ``It is s a remarkable step forward, and I hope that we continue that momentum.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/12/14/toronto-votes-to-legalize-rooming-houses-citywide-in-2024.html

Good news indeed.  I’m going to see who this all unfolds before I revise my poem.   Find it below.

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Rupert Hotel December 1989*

Gordon was sorry

but it was tough keeping warm

and he’d had some to drink 

so setting fire to those papers on the floor in the middle 

of his second-floor room made some kind of sense.

                

At the Rupert Hotel, a three-storey brick walk up

in a licensed city rooming house 

off Queen Street East 

at Parliament

those with few options and few dollars could exist, 

in a way. 

 

Gordon’s warming fire soon leapt out of control 

flames and choking smoke filling the corridors 

as the fire gained full possession of the hallways.

The license pinned to the wall wasn’t worth the paper 

it was printed on as far as the protection it afforded 

the 31 tenants at the Rupert

on this wintry December night. 

A sprinkler system might have halted the fire’s progress.

Perhaps tenants could have taken action 

if the alarm system had been operable 

or fire extinguishers stored in the basement were reachable.

It was 17 long minutes before someone called 911.

When firefighters arrived 

the whole building was enveloped. 

Flames leapt out of the top floor windows.

Firefighters using ladders forced their way 

into the searing heat of the second floor.  

Later a witness called it 

“A Vision out of Hell.”

As the fire raged people screamed, crying out for friends.

It took six hours and eighteen crews to subdue the blaze.

Thankfully, some tenants were saved and many escaped. 

For days crews chopped through ice and debris to locate bodies. 

They found nine men. 

A woman had returned to the building to help a friend 

Donna Marie Cann died, as had the others, 

of heavy smoke inhalation.

Soon an inquest was held.

Recommendations were made    

new rules created 

regulations established

housing planned.

After a while all was forgotten.

Rules and regulations lapsed, 

were ignored or opposed 

and the programs ended.

In the city today austerity policies 

compel people to rent rooms 

in perilous and dangerous buildings. 

Many flee the downtown to illegal suburban homes 

where life is cheaper. 

*According to the Fire Marshal, there were fires at 69 illegal rooming houses in the Toronto area between 2013 and 2017.