One year after a fire, these North York tenants still don’t know when they can go home

On the left, Indy Woodstock can be seen hanging from his fourth-floor apartment's balcony trying to bring his children down to the balcony below. On the right, are boarded windows of the building taken almost exactly a year after the fire. (Indy Woodstock/Diana Jacobsen)

All Indy Woodstock wants is to bring his wife and three children home to North York. A year after a fire tore through the top floor of their four-storey apartment building, he still can’t say when that will be.

“We didn’t spend Christmas over there, we spent Christmas away. Now, another Christmas gonna be approaching. It’s gonna be the same thing,” Woodstock told CTV News in an interview in early September.

A fire broke out at 3020 Keele St. on the evening of Sept. 29, 2025, displacing 29 tenants Woodstock says, including himself and his family.

Woodstock, who had lived in the building for nine years, said he had just gotten into bed when his wife woke him, thinking she had heard an alarm.

He could hear a voice shouting “fire” repeatedly from the hallway, he said. By the time he opened his front door, all he could see was thick, black smoke.

“I told my wife, ‘Hurry up, get the kids ready, because there’s a fire. We have to evacuate’,” Woodstock said.

With the hallway shrouded in a black haze, Woodstock said he felt there was no way out except the balcony. He and his family stood out on their veranda and he carried his children down one by one to his neighbour’s balcony a floor below.

Debrah Warner, who also lives on the fourth floor, said the smoke was so dense that she felt she had no choice but to remove the screen from her window and sit by it until firefighters could reach her.

“All there was, was thick black smoke,” Warner said.

Toronto Fire Services said crews responded at around 11:40 p.m. and that five people were injured, including three children and a firefighter.

Woodstock said he and his family were not hurt, but were “terrified.”

“I swear to God, the hand of God was on us all,” Warner said.

Toronto Fire Services said a subsequent investigation determined the fire was accidental, caused by an unattended candle.

“An inspection of the building did not identify any violations of the Fire Code, and therefore no charges were laid,” Capt. Alex Vashkevich wrote in an email.

Forced to move out

In a notice from the building’s insurance provider, obtained by CTV News, residents were told several units sustained enough damage to require “demolition, drying and environmental remediation” before they could be deemed safe to move back into.

The insurer instructed residents to remove everything from their apartments, from furniture to personal belongings, and vacate so repairs could be made. It also told them to contact their personal insurance providers immediately.

Warner and Woodstock did not have personal insurance.

Some of the repairs the building was ordered to carry out, according to a property standards order issued in October 2025, included removing smoke damage on walls, ceilings and stairwells, and repairing and replacing doors and windows.

In a letter from the building’s lawyer, delivered Oct. 6, 2025 and obtained by CTV News, residents were told that Havenbrook Holdings Inc., which oversees 3020 Keele St., would provide an abatement of rent for the month of the fire, along with the last month’s rental deposit. The letter also said the property “does not have a timeline as to when the repairs will be completed.”

Havenbrook’s insurer, in its letter, said the owner is “required by law to mitigate further loss and to ensure all units are made for re-occupancy as soon as possible.”

Toronto Fire Services could not comment on how long remediation should take, saying it is a matter between the building owner and its insurer.

The city offered temporary accommodation at a nearby hotel for about three weeks, Warner said, before offering a stay at a shelter downtown. Warner and Woodstock both declined.

“I couldn’t go to a shelter because the shelter they offered me was in downtown and my kids go to school close by … it was not something I wanted to do at the time,” Woodstock said.

A city spokesperson confirmed the Emergency Social Services program provides immediate, short-term assistance to residents displaced by an emergency, and said the city also offered food and clothing support to the Keele Street residents.

‘Unacceptably long time’

Warner has been living at a friend’s home in Beamsville, Ont., since the temporary accommodation ended. As for Woodstock, he and his family moved into another rental in North York. He says he had been paying $1,170 for a two-bedroom at 3020 Keele St., including two parking spaces, and now pays $1,850 for a one-bedroom.

“It’s a single place, so we have to try and navigate through all that. Very depressing,” Woodstock said.

Diana Jacobsen’s nephew, Richard, had lived on the fourth floor of the building for nearly 20 years and is now staying with her in Brampton. She said he is deaf and does not speak, and that all his doctors are within walking distance or a short bus ride from the building. Now she drives him to his medical appointments every week.

“It’s about 30 kilometres each way,” Jacobsen said, adding that gas prices and Highway 407 ETR tolls are making the trips costly.

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“We have children that go to school. We have grown-ups, we have elderly, and you mean to tell me — I mean nobody seems to care,” Woodstock said.

Coun. James Pasternak, who represents Ward 6 – York Centre, told CTV News Toronto that Havenbrook filed a permit application and an engineer-submitted proposal in February 2026 but that the application was cancelled because the company did not pay its fees. It was then resubmitted in August, he said.

“It’s been an unacceptably long time to really move forward and restore this building, and get the people in it, and we have to really look at these situations where there’s a requirement of the building owner to do things much quicker,” Pasternak said. “We can’t have residents just unsure of when they’ll be able to move back in.”

Havenbrook’s lawyer, Domenic Saverino, said in an email on Sept. 17 that the City of Toronto had yet to issue a permit allowing the company to “complete the required work, despite the permit application having been submitted a long time ago.”

“As a result of this delay, my client cannot provide a date when the units will be ready and habitable,” Saverino said.

The city confirmed it granted permission to rebuild on Sept. 18.

Jacobsen visited the building on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 29, and said a notice was taped to the back door informing tenants that construction would begin on the fourth floor.

The notice cautions residents about construction noise and temporary odours during work hours. It does not say when construction is expected to end.

“Richard wants to go home … everything that he knows is there. His things are in storage in North York,” she said. “We were under the impression that wasn’t going to be this long.”