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100 Homeless after Washington Hotel Fire

by jr | February 6, 2009 at 04:27 pm

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A fire at the Washington Hotel near Main & Hastings Thursday in Vancouver left roughly 100 residents homeless. Staff from the City's Emergency Social Services Dept. were at the hotel last night helping tenants find emergency shelter.

Questions are being asked about why the sprinkler system malfunctioned in the Washington which is operated by the Portland Hotel Sociey. The PHS is best known for operating Insite, the Supervised Drug Injection Site on the same block.

For more photos of the fire, go to Downtown Eastside Enquirer

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car1edb

at 18:09 on February 6th, 2009

This isn't good at all, interesting to see what happens to that building next...

- more info here.

at 17:29 on February 7th, 2009

Since it is designated as social housing, my assumption is that it will simply be repaired and re-opened as housing. Mark Townsend of the PHS told the media that most suites were not damaged by the fire and he assumed that most tenants could stay in the building. But fire or health authorities examining the building must have felt differently.