When a fire damaged a Port Coquitlam apartment building on Thursday, one resident lost nearly all her fashion design equipment.
Although the blaze broke out on another floor, local fashion designer Ogechukw Ajibe tells 1130 NewsRadio that her unit is uninhabitable as a result of the water damage and a collapsed ceiling.
“My machine, my fabric, my patterns. I went to fashion school, all my schoolbooks,” she said, are the things that were destroyed in the fire.
“The rest of the apartment, which was my bedroom, the sitting room, you can’t see the water, but everything was soaked. The bed was soaked.”
Ajibe says that she had only moved into the apartment two days before the fire broke out.
In an effort to restart her life and business, Ajibe has launched a GoFundMe.
“I moved into this apartment on May 2, and now, on May 9th, I’m homeless. I only spent 48 full hours at my place, and now I only have the clothes on my back and the things I went to work with,” she wrote on the crowdfunding platform.
“I’m grateful I wasn’t in the unit when the fire broke out, and that I have my health. But I have to start over with nothing.”
She says she had not bought renters’ insurance in time for the fire.
“My internet router only arrived on May 6, and with the chaos of moving and unpacking, I made a great oversight in not obtaining my tenant insurance in time.”
She recommends that other renters purchase such a policy as soon as they sign a lease.
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Ajibe hopes to replace most of her equipment with the GoFundMe proceeds.
“People have just been amazing. I just put up a $10,000 goal for me, and they support me as much as they can,” she said.
Donations have already exceeded $15,000 as of Sunday, 3 p.m.
Ajibe explains that she relies on her community and any additional support from other people, as she has no family in B.C.
“I am an immigrant who came here 11 years ago with no family, even till today, and I got student loans in this country, so I don’t have a family to run to. It’s just me.”
The fire in the three-storey building, which broke out sometime before 9:20 a.m., displaced at least 12 people and sent two residents to the hospital, one in serious condition.
The Port Coquitlam Fire and Emergency Service knocked the fire down within a matter of hours.
– With files from Sidney Parker.