Rupert Hotel memorial a reminder that unsafe housing conditions still exist in Toronto

Every December, a few dozen people gather to remember the nine men and one woman who died in the Rupert Hotel fire at the corner of Parliament and Queen on Dec. 23, 1989.

It was a dilapidated, century old, wooden framed building used as a rooming house with close to 30 units where tenants lived in crammed quarters. The corridors were so narrow their shoulders almost brushed the walls as they walked down the hallways. A poorly maintained building, the Rupert’s main fire alarm system was turned off and the backup system wasn’t working.

“It was a disaster waiting to happen,” said Michael Shapcott, who lived and worked in the neighbourhood at the time as a community organizer and is now the Director, Affordable Housing and Social Innovation at the Wellesley Institute.

On the night of the fire, flames shot out of the building from the second and third floors that melted the insulators on the hydro wires on the west side of Parliament. “We began to see these big blue sparks coming off the hydro mains at the same time that flames and smoke were pouring out of the building,” said Shapcott.

“It was a scene of unimaginable disaster and chaos, like right out of hell.”

Firefighters and tenants tried to save people trapped inside the building. Donna Marie Cann, a 31-year-old tenant originally from Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, had escaped to safety but went back inside to rescue one of her friends only to be overcome by smoke inhalation.

In the days following the fire, the incredible outrage from people living in rooming houses as well as housing and service providers led to the creation of the Rupert Pilot Project that rehabilitated two dozen buildings for over 500 low income tenants from 1990 to 1993 - on time and under budget.

The City of Toronto also promised to monitor landlords more closely so what happened at the Rupert Hotel would never happen again. But at the same time, thousands of  rooming houses in the downtown core slowly disappeared over the next 21 years.

“Rooming houses are important because they provide housing for low income people who otherwise would be on the streets or in shelters,” said Shapcott. “That’s why there needs to be planning and zoning rules to ensure a good healthy mix of housing in neighbourhoods throughout Toronto.”

A couple of weeks ago, the McGuinty Liberals released their long term affordable housing strategy with no mention of inclusionary housing so affordable, legal rooming houses could be available for rent in every neighbourhood.

Right now,  rooming houses exist in every part of Toronto but because of zoning laws they’re often operating underground and offer no protection to tenants.

“So we have to bring them out of this secretive place, bring them out from being illegal” he said.

In 1993, a special ceremony was held to unveil an historic plaque inlaid in the sidewalk on Parliament Street in memory of the ten who died four years earlier.

“It’s important that we continue to come and remember and use it as a way of educating people about how some people are forced to live in a city like Toronto,” said future Toronto mayor Barbara Hall, then a Toronto city councillor and now the Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

“Often it’s freezing and blowing and icy when we come here and that underlines the horror of that day.”

Hall remembered sitting in then-mayor Art Eggleton’s office after the fire with federal Minister of Housing Alan Redway, Premier David Peterson and members of council to talk about how they could work collectively to address the issues that led to ten deaths.

“Today is different,” said Hall. “We don’t have three levels of government prepared to come and sit down and figure out ways to create safe housing across this country.”

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is the first commission in the country to declare housing as a human right and look at how the Human Rights Code can be used to ensure everyone has access to decent, affordable housing.

“We know that the zoning and the planning process is often used to keep people out,” she said. “We see that as discriminatory under the Code.”

So the Ontario Human Rights Commission has started using the Code to force municipalities to look at how they plan and build their communities as well as how they discriminate against the homeless and people with special needs.

“Some of the inspiration for me comes from this corner and what happened here,” said Hall.

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