N.S. families who lost their homes to Fiona scramble to find a place to live

On the night post-tropical storm Fiona hit Nova Scotia, Dana Boutilier woke up at home to water dripping on her face from the ceiling above. She quickly realized something was very wrong.

She jumped out of bed to find herself ankle deep in water.

“As I proceeded to leave the room to go to the washroom, water was shooting out in the washroom walls. My eight year old woke up screaming saying that water was coming in through her light fixtures,” Boutilier said.

The storm’s high winds and heavy rain pulled shingles and the roof cap off the home, near Truro, N.S., and created a large hole. Boutilier said when she looked around the next morning, she saw “utter devastation.”

Because of flooding, most of the house and the family’s belongings are now covered in mould. Boutilier said repairs will take at least a year to complete and she’s worried about her family’s living situation in the meantime. 

The Boutiliers are among hundreds of Nova Scotians whose homes were damaged or destroyed in the storm. According to the Red Cross, more than 250 people in the province had to leave their homes and stay in emergency shelters or be placed in hotels in the last three weeks.

But Boutilier believes the true number of people who need help is higher, because she tried to get emergency support and fell through the cracks. 

“When the Red Cross finally called me back, I was expecting, ‘Yay, we’re gonna have help, they’re disaster relief,'” she said. “[But] they suggested that I go to our local homeless shelter and call my food bank and ask them to whip up a hot meal.

“And when I explained that’s not what these organizations are designed for, she told me they would call me back, and they never did.”

Boutilier is on the board of the Truro Housing Outreach Society, which is where the person from the Red Cross suggested she seek shelter.

She knew the organization didn’t have the capacity to shelter families, so she brought her children to family members’ homes, and she and her husband went back to their house and camped in their wet living room with no electricity. 

For nearly three weeks since the storm, the family has been split up, couch surfing in three different homes.

Their insurance company will be paying for an Airbnb while their home is unlivable, but Boutilier said finding a short-term rental was a struggle, and they can’t move in until Oct. 25. 

“Part of the problem was finding a place in a housing crisis,” Boutilier said. “We had to sell off a lot of our animals, our farm animals, because we just won’t be here … we’re going to be in an Airbnb using other people’s stuff, living in somebody else’s house.”

Boutilier said she hadn’t heard back from the Red Cross or received any emergency funding until CBC News contacted the Red Cross about her situation.

Then she received a phone call from the organization saying she would be receiving financial support. That came on Saturday afternoon when she received an email payment of $500. She doesn’t know whether more is coming. 

The Red Cross declined to be interviewed about Boutilier’s situation due to its rules on confidentiality.

Dan Bedell, the Red Cross communications director for the Atlantic Region, noted that millions of dollars have been disbursed by his organization so far in the region.

“The Canadian Red Cross has already distributed more than $11 million of aid on behalf of both governments and our own Red Cross donors to about 32,000 households across the Atlantic region with various impacts from Fiona,” he said. “These figures increase every hour as more households are contacted and their details are verified and we’re able to confirm their preferred method of receiving financial aid, such as via e-transfer, a pre-paid credit card or mailed cheque.”

Renters worried about low vacancy rate 

Alicia Getz and her daughter Mercury lived in an apartment building in Halifax Regional Municipality that was damaged by the post-tropical storm. 

When the building’s roof was destroyed in the night, they grabbed two suitcases and ended up at a Red Cross emergency shelter. Shortly after, they found out their apartment was condemned and they couldn’t return. 

“I’m keeping myself strong and not crying, although I feel like just screaming my head off,” Alicia Getz said. “Having watched documentaries and news programs and stuff like that with people displaced and not having a home to return to, I never thought that we would be in that situation.”

After a few days sleeping on cots in the emergency shelter, the family was put up in a hotel by the Red Cross, with funding from the provincial government.

Getz said the support from the Red Cross in the provincial capital has been excellent, but the hotel stay is only two weeks and she doesn’t know what to do when it ends.

She had apartment insurance and received the $1,000 emergency funding for people who can’t return to their homes, but she’s still concerned about the low vacancy rate and high rents in the city. 

“It’s extremely hard to find a new place. We’re reaching out to friends and family and they’re reaching out to people that they know,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to find a home.”

The provincial department that handles residential tenancies said if a rental unit is damaged in a storm, the landlord has a responsibility to keep it safe and fit to live in.

“If the unit is deemed not fit to live in by an entity such as a fire marshal or municipality, the tenancy is considered terminated under the Residential Tenancies Act,” said Blaise Theriault, a spokesperson for the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Internal Services.

Getz said her landlord has been helping her search for a new place to live, but she wonders whether any long-term housing support will be available. 

Red Cross not responsible for long-term support

Bedell said the organization will try to extend hotel stays for displaced people as long as possible, but at some point the organization will step aside.

“We’re not really involved in long-term housing needs,” Bedell said. “I mean we know that that’s a massive issue, not just here in Nova Scotia but across the country, involving multiple levels of government and many other organizations with expertise in housing issues. We are not that organization.”

When CBC asked if there will be any sort of long-term government-funded housing support for people whose homes or rental units were damaged beyond repair, provincial Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing spokesperson Krista Higdon did not provide specific details.

“We would anticipate people approaching their insurance companies for coverage,” Higdon said in a statement. “For people who find themselves looking for housing, we encourage them to reach out to inquire about our rent supplement program and to explain their current situation and need.”

More funding for hotel stays

Higdon said the Red Cross and Cape Breton Community Housing Association have each been given $100,000 to fund hotel stays for families who lost their homes. Viola’s Place and Pictou County Roots for Youth Society also received funding for emergency supports. 

But Dana Boutilier believes the support from the government and the Red Cross should have been more thorough in rural areas, and put in place more quickly.

“They should had something set up when they knew the hurricane was coming. This is their area of expertise. They should have been ready so that when everybody the next day had all these tragedies, people had someplace to go,” she said.

“They need to do better. They really failed people in this area.”