Community comes together to support Charlottetown family displaced by fire

A single mother and her children are living in a Charlottetown hotel after a fire displaced them earlier this month, but a group of volunteers is providing support as Christmas approaches.

Last Thursday morning, Jordyn Hooley was dropping her four-year-old daughter off at daycare "like any other day" when her phone rang.  

"I got a call from the fire chief saying the apartment was on fire and asking for me to go there," she said. "I was shocked, completely shocked, completely upset. I didn't know anything. I didn't know how bad it was at that point…

"I went back to the house and it was surrounded with fire trucks everywhere."

No one was home at the time but two cats died in the fire, Hooley said. The cause of the blaze has not yet been determined.  

At the scene, fire officials told her there was "major damage" to her home, Hooley said.

"There may be one sentimental thing I may be able to get out of there… my grandmother's dresser. Other than that, everything is destroyed with smoke and water. The kids' room is burned. We lost everything. Just everything is gone," she said.

Other items in the home owned by Hooley's grandmother, who died in 2019, were a total loss, Hooley said.

"That and family pictures — everything is replaceable but that stuff isn't."

Then there were the children's belongings. Hooley also has a nine-year old daughter and her 12-year-old stepson is with her on weekends.

"All of their toys, all of their Christmas gifts, everything they owned is just completely destroyed," she said.

Now Hooley is living out of a hotel in downtown Charlottetown.

"My older kids are more upset about the animals than anything. My youngest doesn't understand at all. She says 'home, home' every once in a while, wanting to go home and I just [don't] know how to explain it to her."

The Canadian Red Cross provided food and personal items including clothing, as well as funding for the first three nights at the hotel. Then Hooley contacted the Emergency Shelter Support Line and now the province is helping to pay for her temporary housing, she said.