After losing her home in a fire 7 months ago, she still can't find a place to live

It's been a harrowing seven months for Laureen McGraw, living in an SUV and visiting different homeless shelters across Windsor.

In April, the house she was renting burned down in a fire.

Since then, her search to find a comfortable place to live has gone unsuccessful — an ongoing problem she attributes to high rent prices, a packed shelter system and a lack of emergency support services in Windsor.

McGraw said she moved to a rental home on Chatham Street in December. An effort to heat up oil while making french fries in the kitchen accidentally turned into a grease fire.

"I called 911 but, within minutes, the fire was through the roof," said McGraw. "It was an old house with asbestos in the ceiling. All our possessions went on fire."

According to McGraw, she had no friends or family who can house herself, her 28-year-old son and their dog.

Instead, they have all been living in McGraw's SUV, visiting shelters in the city to grab a meal and put a roof over their heads.

"We've met some wonderful people at the Downtown Mission, Street Help, the Soup Shack and New Hope Church," McGraw said.

In cases of immediate housing needs due to a fire, Windsor Fire and Rescue connects individuals to the Canadian Red Cross which provides emergency accommodations for three nights, according to Windsor's commissioner of human and health services.

"If the displaced person or family needs assistance for a longer period of time, the Red Cross will request assistance from our housing department and we can help the person find longer-term solutions and navigate through the variety of community services and supports that we have," said Andrew Daher.

"Typically, what we try to do is try to connect them to family or friends for some immediate suggestions. If there's no possibility of that, we'll try to get them into shelters."

Now more than ever, introducing new clients to Windsor's shelters is a tall task.

During a Nov. 1 meeting of the Community Services Standing Committee, vice chair Fabio Costante asked Downtown Mission executive director Rukshini Ponniah-Goulin if they have capacity to house more people.

"At this time, no. Our shelter, as well as the other two shelters — the Welcome Centre and Salvation Army — are either at capacity or very close to capacity, nightly," said Ponniah-Goulin.

"Even right now, for October going into November, we shouldn't be at capacity already. But, unfortunately, we are."

Daher recommends people in dire need to walk into the city's Homelessness, Housing and Help Hub (H4), located at the former Water World building.

"They can connect them into, maybe, private market or into some of our social housing where they have enough income to pay for the rent on a monthly basis," he said.

But McGraw, who said the rental insurance payout she received after the fire was not large enough to help her transition into a new rental property, finding an affordable rental in Windsor has not been easy.

"The rent is so expensive. A one-bedroom is $1,000 to $2,000. A two-bedroom? $1,400 to $2,400. How does one person on ODSP actually afford that? The rental prices are outrageous," said McGraw.

"There is no emergency housing to put a homeless person when they have a fire ... They expect you to go to family and friends. What if you don't have any?"

McGraw added she applied to be on the City of Windsor's waitlist for social housing shortly after the April fire — but no vacancies have opened up.

"There's a lack of housing within the City of Windsor that's affordable. They build new apartment buildings and condos but for thousands of dollars a month."