- Last Updated on Saturday, 20 June 2015 21:23
Extensive damage to City Mission's chapel building in Washington, PA has caused fire experts to revise earlier estimates of re-occupation of the three damaged men's dormitories.
In June, a fire broke out at City Mission in the kitchen. The fire destroyed the kitchen, dining room and badly damaged three dormitories. The night houseman, Keith Groves, evacuated all 58 men living in the building safely. Residents were moved to the Lemoyne Center and A Second Chance while the fire department extinguished the fire.
"The building will be uninhabitable for 6-8 months," said Dean Gartland, president/CEO of City Mission. "In terms of our normal operations, the situation is far more grim than we thought. We need to figure out where to house our male residents. Also, the kitchen and dining room are gutted and need to be rebuilt." Gartland continued, "Since we serve 92,000 meals a year, this is a serious problem."
Temporarily the men have been relocated to Samaritan Care Center on the lower end of City Mission's campus equipped with cots donated by the Red Cross. Until further arrangements are made, The Bible Chapel in Washington has welcomed City Mission to serve meals from their facilities at 34 West Wheeling Street.
