Tenants evacuated from fire devastated by losses

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This article was published 22/11/2023 (720 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Divine Nelson left his apartment after hearing a smoke alarm, he thought that he’d be able to have an apartment to return to. Instead, he watched his building go up in flames.

Nelson was one of the more than 10 people evacuated from 144 12th St. early Monday morning before the entire building caught fire as a result of arson. Dakota Benn, 33, has been charged with breaking into the building by smashing the glass on a front door and setting the blaze that left many of the building’s apartment tenants without a home or any of their belongings.

Nelson, who lived in one of the apartments with four roommates, said he took some of his roommates to a friend’s house after they were evacuated around 3 a.m., thinking that a small fire would be quickly extinguished. But when he returned to the building around 7:45 a.m., he had to watch as his apartment and all his belongings burned.

“We felt like it [was] just going to be smoke, right? Nothing’s going to happen to us,” Nelson said. “But then coming back … just to see the building going down, everything in flames.

“My roommates were all crying, and it was really devastating.”

When Nelson heard the fire alarm, he gathered his laptop, keys and important documents. But then he decided to take a quick look at what was happening in the building downstairs. When he got downstairs, the police told him that he wouldn’t be able to go back upstairs because of smoke in the building. He couldn’t save anything he owned.

“I’m still in shock, I literally just started crying yesterday,” Nelson said. “I didn’t cry seeing [the fire] but then, it just got to me, and I was crying.”

Nelson said that the priority for him and his roommates is finding shelter. Red Cross has helped them by paying for rooms in the Victoria Inn to stay, though that will only be for three days. On Tuesday, he started a GoFundMe fundraiser to collect money for him and his roommates to rent another apartment and purchase necessities.

“I just want us to get some cash and get a roof over our head because that’s the basic necessity, right?” he said. “We need to get a roof over our heads.”

Any funds raised from the fundraiser will be split among themselves, he said. And while he said they are looking for another place to rent, they haven’t secured anything yet.

Nelson, along with his roommates, is an international student at Brandon University and said the university and student union were also trying to help them to obtain school necessities.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian community in Brandon has organized to help out its own members, many of whom were tenants affected by the fire. Esther Okoye told the Sun that the community is supporting eight people who lost everything in the fire, with clothes and home-cooked Nigerian food.

“Everything they had, it is gone to ashes,” she said, adding that she put a message out in the community WhatsApp group to encourage members to provide what they can to help the tenants.

Okoye also said that the community has started its own fundraiser and has collected a little over a thousand dollars. The money will help with purchasing new laptops and winter clothes. One victim of the fire, she said, only arrived in Brandon for school in September and hasn’t experienced the harsh winter yet.

“We’re just trying for these people to make sure that [they] bounce back on their feet, to move on with life.”

She said money will be collected until next week and is happy to receive donations from anyone in the community.

Dagnew Shumye, a manager at ABC Taxi, one of the two companies that had an office space on the first floor of the building, has also received community support.

Shumye told the Sun that an office space at 244 10th St. has been offered to them to continue their operations while they decide on a permanent new space. A local tech company provided them with laptops, as all the company’s equipment was destroyed in the fire.

He said he has not received a damage estimate on the building, which is owned by ABC Taxi, but confirmed that the building was insured.

The most recent property tax assessment valued the building at $511,800.

“The good thing is that our tenants or employees didn’t get hurt,” Shumye said, adding that he did not know of any connection to the accused.

He said that the front door that was smashed during the break and enter belonged to the other tenant on the main floor of the building, Turning Leaf, a non-profit charitable organization that provides support services in the community.

The organization’s chief operating officer, Jennifer Biggs, couldn’t comment on whether there was any connection between the organization and the accused, citing the ongoing investigation and privacy concerns.

Benn is scheduled to next appear in court on Thursday.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com

» X: @geena_mortfield