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Tanya Burke, a London woman who moved into an apartment in November after two years of living on the streets, hoped the Christmas holidays would be different this year.
For three weeks, the 44-year-old was happy and grateful to have a roof over her head.
She cleaned up her modest basement apartment in a multi-unit building in east London, painted the walls and was ready to decorate it for the holidays.
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“It was looking like a home,” said Burke, who was profiled in a Free Press story in November as she was about to leave her tent in a London park to move into her apartment. “I made it into a home. I wanted a home so badly.”
But after returning Dec. 5 from a Christmas shopping trip with new ornaments for her tree and gifts for her son, everything changed in the “blink of an eye,” she said.
“I sat down on the couch and fell asleep,” Burke said.
When she woke up, she said a new mattress in her bedroom was burning.
“It was all black in there,” Burke said.
In the heavy smoke, she struggled to find the fire extinguisher and her phone to call 911.
Burke, who needs a walker because of back disease, said she screamed to her neighbours for help and left her unit.
She and about seven other tenants vacated the building at 551 Hale St. Two people were assessed by paramedics, the London fire department said. Damage was estimated at $200,000.
Burke said she doesn’t know how the fire started. “Every time I think about it, it kills me.”
After the fire, she signed a document that mutually terminates a tenancy agreement between a landlord and a tenant.
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“I was deemed not allowed back to my apartment. I’m assuming it’s because the damages were bad,” she said.
Burke said she lost everything of sentimental value in the fire, including keepsakes of her son who died of a drug overdose in 2021and her grandmother’s pottery collection.
She also lost her dentures. “It’s hard to walk around with no teeth. It’s hard for everything,” Burke said.
All she has left is a suitcase with some clothes and her walker.
Burke has a 12-year-old son whom she lost custody of after becoming homeless more than two years ago. He lives with family.
“I can’t get him back until I can show stability,” she said. “And how can I show stability with (everything) that keeps happening?”
In the meantime, Burke is staying at a shelter until she can find a new home. She said she wakes up every day “determined to keep going.
“I just keep breathing and chugging along,” she said. “But I want my life to be better than it is. I’ve been trying so hard to make it that way, but I take one step forward and 50 back.”
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