Burned building was to house homeless

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - A downtown fire this morning burned more than just a building. It burned a future home for nearly two dozen of Indianapolis' homeless.

Light smoke was showing from the empty Burton Building at 821 N. Pennsylvania St. when firefighters first arrived about 6:45 a.m. Monday. That smoke gave way to flames through the roof, said Rita Burris, Indianapolis Fire Department spokeswoman.

"They made an interior investigation and found heavy fire in the rear that had gone both floors, up the stairwell and communicated into the common attic," she said.

After firefighters left, it was clear there was a lot of damage in the back of the building. Investigators estimated it at $200,000. That’s a blow to the building's Indianapolis non-profit owner, Partners in Housing Corp. Executive Director Cynthia Shaffer said crews were putting the final touches on a $2 million dollar rehab at the building.

The group said the building was unoccupied, though residents were scheduled to move back soon. Partners in Housing provides affordable housing for people at risk of becoming homeless, including military veterans. The group said via Twitter Monday morning the building was vacant.

Thankfully, no one was in the building since it was closed for rehab.We were scheduled to move people back in a month.

— Partners In Housing (@PartnersHousing) May 7, 2012

"We were expected to be finished with our renovations within the next three or four weeks. So this has come at a pretty bad time to have to start over," she said.

And it's a tough blow for the 23 people who would have moved into the newly renovated building.

"We rehab buildings and then provide housing for the homeless, the chronically homeless. And that's our mission," Shaffer said.

Chris Maples, director of communications for Partners in Housing, surveyed the damage to the rehabbed building.

"I found out by seeing the tweets from WISH today," he said.

Maples said there is a ray of hope in the aftermath: The front of the building was not badly damaged, which means moving forward will be a little easier.

"And we feel so strongly about it that there's no way we are going to let something like this stop us from providing shelter," Shaffer said.

Partners In Housing believes the fire was electrical and started in the back of the building. But IFD investigators have not yet made that determination.

Partners in Housing does have insurance. It owns nearly a dozen other buildings, so it has temporary housing for those who were set to move back into the Burton building.