Help Maureen Rebuild Her Life

Our dear friend and neighbor Maureen and her dog Frida suffered a terrible loss yesterday. Yesterday around 7am, Maureen’s home of 49 years caught fire, and in mere moments, a lifetime of memory and comfort went up in flames.

Maureen is 77 and a retiree. She bought that house in 1975 as a single mother with two kids. She’s taken great pride in her home, and it’s all she has. She has been a treasure in the neighborhood for years, helping neighbors any way she can, sweeping driveways, reminding us to move our cars for street cleaning, and in general being a wonderful and caring member of our community.

This fire has suddenly left her and her dog Frida without a home. Her house is uninhabitable, and all of her memories, belongings and treasured keepsakes are gone. As a retiree she’s on a fixed income and doesn’t have the funds to clean up the fire debris (which is her obligation according to the city) or fix the extensive fire damage to the house. Unfortunately, due to an issue we’re still troubleshooting, her insurance has lapsed and so she’s left to pay for the cleanup and repairs out of pocket. We are currently trying to figure if we can fix the insurance issue. Please help us come together as a community. Please donate if you can, and if you can’t, please share this so others may be able to help.

The immediate need is to raise funds for a cleanup crew to come remove the fire debris and clean up the interior of the house after the fire. In addition, she’ll need clothing and other personal items. After that, she’ll need to rebuild her home so that her and Frida can have a place to live again. The firemen noted that it’s currently uninhabitable because of the potentially toxic nature of the fire debris, which needs to be cleaned professionally. The extent of the necessary renovations are unknown at present.

If you know anyone who might be able to donate their time or labor in helping her fix her home, please let us know. Thank you for your time.

Danielle, Dolly, Sara, Siobhan and Maureen’s other neighbors.

Update 4/12/24: Thank you to those who have generously donated and for those of you those who have shared this go fund me!!! Your donations and sharing of this link is a huge help to Maureen.  So far, we’ve been able to clean up the debris in the front of the house with your help. The next donation goal is to be able to do the post-fire cleanup per city requirements. Maureen’s been given estimates of around $10,000 for that work, if you have any resources or information regarding more cost affordable ways to do this, let us know. Once she is able to raise the funds for that and the interior fire debris is cleaned up, we can figure out next steps to rebuild her home. Likely there is damage to the internal structure but we are in the process of arranging city inspections for that. Maureen and Frida wants very badly to be able to return home. If we can get their home fixed up to the point where she can occupy the downstairs bedroom, we can help her fix the home up piece by piece. 

Insurance is not going to cover this so Maureen will have to come up with the funds to do all of this. Anything you can do to, donating, information regarding rebuilding resources, labor, materials, sharing her link, would be a huge act of kindness.