Damage was estimated at $50,000 after fire broke out in an apartment inside a highly supportive housing complex on Dundas Street downtown, London Fire Department officials say.
It was shortly after 11 a.m. when fire crews were called to 362 Dundas St. – the location of what’s dubbed House of Hope, which was opened by London Cares in 2023. Firefighters battled a blaze in a unit on the second floor of the mid-rise building, located between Waterloo and Colborne streets.
Photos posted to social media by the London Fire Department showed extensive damage inside an apartment, almost all its contents charred black.
Platoon Chief Jamie Britton said there were no injuries but one person was displaced due to the blaze, which was contained to a single apartment. The cause remained under investigation, he said early Sunday afternoon.
“The first crew found heavy smoke” when they arrived, Britton said, adding they were able to “quickly” locate the blaze and “knock the fire down.”
A one-time hotel, the building is now run by London Cares and is described on its website as filled with 50 “supportive housing units” where residents receive “comprehensive 24/7 health and social supports.”
Per the website, the building offers residents “a safe, stable place to live” with “access to services,” “nutritious food,” around-the clock support staff and “medical care in a non-judgmental space.”
In late 2024, as the facility ended its first year of operation under the city’s new system for homelessness, The Free Press reported on its successes in changing the lives of people who’d been living on London’s streets.
“It’s really quite remarkable,” one London Cares official said at the time. “What we’ve seen is people, within three to six months, gain so much stability.”
In its first year it welcomed 56 tenants, 90 per cent coming straight from the streets or homeless camps and the rest from long-term hospital stays.