BRADFORD - Weeks after an apartment fire in Bradford, the building is under repair and some of its residents have returned.
The fire occurred on the morning of May 28 at the corner of South Main Street and Cobblestone Alley. No one was injured, but a family of four was displaced.
Two of the building’s three units, including the apartment where the fire started, are currently undergoing renovations, while the third unit was repaired within two weeks of the fire, according to Downstreet Housing Facilities Manager Bernie Woolums.
Although the fire investigation report came back inconclusive, Woolums believes the most likely cause was an overloaded power strip.
Woolums said that he had to bring in contractors to completely gut the unit where the fire started and replace the electrical wiring in the bedroom where the fire occurred. The projected completion date for renovations is September, but Woolums said that he was unsure whether his team would be able to meet that goal due to supply chain issues.
“It’s hard to source the things we’ll need to completely fix and rehab the unit,” Woolums said. “We’ve had pretty good luck so far, so hopefully that will continue.”
The occupants of the two units that are currently being renovated were in the process of moving out when the fire occurred, and have since left Bradford, according to Louisa Olson, a compliance and occupancy specialist at Downstreet.
Olson said that Downstreet had been unable to conduct inspections over much of the past year due to restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and such inspections can help prevent fires like the one that took place in May.
“Usually we’ve got eyes on those apartments at a minimum of twice a year, but we weren’t doing that during Covid,” Olson said. “That cause could’ve been potentially prevented.”
Drew Shaw’s family lived in the third unit at the time of the fire, although he does not live with them. He said that Downstreet put his family up in a hotel in Lebanon for two weeks while the apartment underwent repairs, mostly to his parents’ bedroom.
“It sucked, all around,” Shaw said. “You don’t plan that that stuff will happen and that you’ll have to drop everything and fix it.”
Shaw also said that his family had looked into moving into a new mobile home at the Whistle Stop Mobile Park, but they have since returned to their apartment on South Main Street.
“We’re all on hold with Downstreet, waiting on what they have to say,” Shaw said.
The Whistle Stop Mobile Park is Downstreet’s other Bradford property. It has 12 mobile homes, three of which were constructed recently using federal funding from the CARES Act of 2020, according to a Nov. 11 Journal Opinion article.
Olson said that the three new mobile homes are intended specifically for low-income households experiencing homelessness and disability, and that each of the three has an applicant pending final approval from the Vermont State Housing Authority.
Downstreet works with the state housing authority to provide subsidized housing, and Olson said that the company’s waitlist for subsidized units, particularly in Bradford, is long.
“I’ve had a lot of turnover recently in Bradford. There is a strong demand,” Olson said. “Right now there are 21 households on the list for a two-bedroom, and that’s just in Waits River [Housing].”
