A Wood Buffalo charity has seen a surge in demand from uninsured and underinsured homeowners hit by the Fort McMurray wildfires earlier this year, highlighting the critical need for home insurance as Canada increasingly faces extreme weather events.
Habitat for Humanity Wood Buffalo has seen 120 applications for its services since the wildfires, compared to its normal average of 15 to 20 per year,
CBC News reports.
The demand is so high that the charity has joined forces with three other organizations – the Mennonite Disaster Service, Samaritan’s Purse and FuseSocial – to form a group called NGOs Supporting Uninsured and Underinsured Residents (NSUR).
The charities are helping residents whose properties were destroyed in the wildfires, providing assistance with rebuilding their homes.
A home currently being built by Habitat for Humanity in the subdivision of Waterways, the area hardest hit by the wildfires, might be the first in the community to go back up when construction is complete in January.
NSUR also provides free or discounted materials labour in some cases where it won’t rebuild the home, the report says.
“The status of home ownership is so crucial to so many things stability wise,” said Crystal Lewis-Wilton, executive director of Habitat for Humanity Wood Buffalo. “We really felt that it was necessary to help these families rather than going back into a rental market or potentially going into bankruptcy.”
“With the underinsured, our focus is helping to connect those people with someone third party consulting-wise, who can review their policy, help them understand if there’s anything else they can potentially get out of their policy,” Lewis-Wilton added.
The wildfires that swept Fort McMurray in May destroyed over 2,400 homes, but many more that weren’t completely wiped out were damaged by heat, smoke and water.
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