It was two days before Christmas and dusk was settling across the remains of a miserable, freezing day when Toronto firefighters got the call that the Rupert Hotel rooming house was on fire.

“There were flames out the back of the building when we arrived. It was a horrible situation. There were people on top of the bus shelter, there were people on the fire escape,” said Captain Jack Cooper, describing what he witnessed at the Dec. 23, 1989 blaze that gutted the Parliament and Queen streets property, home to many low-income residents, and resulted in the deaths of 10 people. “It was on the second floor and was blowing out the windows. It was a big fire at that point.”

Thirty years after that fire tore through the three-storey building, rooming houses (officially called multi-tenant buildings) remain one of the last truly affordable housing options across Toronto, although zoning rules mean they are not officially allowed in some areas of the city — so many operate without scrutiny.

The Rupert Hotel at 182 Parliament St. was licensed by the city and subject to safety inspections, but a formal inquest into the fire determined that on that night “the fire alarm was dismantled” and “the building had a history of non-compliance with regards to the fire code,” including access to emergency exits and proper fire separation. The fire department only found out the building was burning because a crew en route to another fire called it in.

“We knew this was trouble,” Cooper said. They knew it was packed and anybody caught off guard, because of drinking or any other reason, didn’t have a chance, he said.

“We did everything we possibly could and 10 people died.”

A report from the Office of the Chief Coroner, dated April 8, 1991, found the fire was set deliberately. Somebody put a cigarette lighter to newspaper on the second floor. It was a “lack of fire separations, lack of closures on doors, and combustible materials which fuelled the fire causing it to spread rapidly” throughout the 126-year-old building, which had 31 rooms spread over the top two floors with retail below.

Gordon Howard Freeman would plead guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in jail, the Star reported in 1991. Freeman was intoxicated and had lit the papers on fire, court heard, after a friend told him to clean up trash.

A photo from the night of the fire shows Cooper as a shadow outlined in smoke on a balcony on the third floor. A plan to go in through a window was thwarted when he was physically pulled back by his captain who had control of the hose and recognized that if Cooper went in he’d never come out.

Seven residents died on the third floor and three on second. Half of the dead were in their rooms. Cooper said firefighter Ross McCannell got a man down from the third floor. “Lucky number 11,” was the only rescue of the night, he said, or the only person who survived who didn’t get out on their own.

At the time of the inquest, the jury heard there were as many as 14,000 rooming house tenants across Toronto.

The captain who pulled Cooper back on that roof was Jim Jessop. His son, Deputy Chief Jim Jessop, said that night changed enforcement tactics across Toronto.

“When we walk into buildings, especially multi-tenants buildings, that don’t comply with the fire code we take a zero-tolerance policy,” Jessop said. “We will move people out, we will close the building, we will issue an immediate threat to life notice, order the owner to close the building. We will charge the owner.”

The Rupert Hotel fire also resulted in amendments to the fire code, Jessop said, boosting protections provincewide.

Today, in Toronto and Etobicoke multi-tenant houses can operate with a licence. As of early September, Toronto alone had 308 on record as licensed or in the process of applying for a licence, according to the city’s website.

Toronto Fire inspects each property before it is licensed, Jessop said, and will come back at the request of licensing staff at the time of renewal — which can be one or two years. With unlicensed properties, of which there are many, Toronto Fire may only come to know they exist through a complaint or after unsafe conditions have resulted in a fire.

Rooming houses are permitted in York Region but a licence is not required. Scarborough, East York and North York consider rooming houses illegal, which effectively, according to one city councillor, exposes marginalized people to danger.

“We have to stop having discriminatory zoning that says people can only live in certain parts of the city,” said Coun. Gord Perks (Ward 4, Parkdale-High Park), speaking with the Star on Wednesday.

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“They still get built, it’s just the people who live in them understand if they complain they could lose their housing. That is why people die in fires.”

Toronto is moving toward adopting a new 10-year housing plan, a draft of which was debated at the city’s planning and housing committee on Tuesday and is expected to be discussed by city council next week.

The housing plan, under future actions, states work is “underway to improve the licensing and regulation of multi-tenant houses and establish citywide zoning permissions for multi-tenant homes,” and Municipal Licensing and Standards staff are expected to report back on this work at the January meeting of the planning and housing committee.

Perks has expressed serious concerns, both to the mayor’s office and the Star, that expanded zoning is still at the discussion stage. “We need this form of licensed safe and affordable housing and we need it now,” he said.

Coun. Ana Bailao (Ward 9, Davenport), who serves as the city’s affordable housing advocate, said expanding rules “is the way to go” to ensure the appropriate safety nets for people in multi-tenant housing.

“We need a system to deal with the many rooming houses that are all over the city,” Bailao said. “We know this is a form of housing that is needed and is used.”

Former mayor Barbara Hall, a ward councillor at the time of the Rupert Hotel fire, said while the “horror” of that night resulted in tougher enforcement for rooming houses, those protections must be citywide.

“I still remember all the water from the hoses frozen on the wires and just knowing how people were trapped and really had no way out,” said Hall, who was on scene while the fire burned.

Those people didn’t have a choice about where they lived, Hall said, and it is the same situation for many across Toronto today.

“Many more people are unable to find decent affordable safe housing and the situation for them I think is even more desperate than it was 30 years ago,” Hall said.

On Thursday, Hall was among a small and steadfast group of activists who gathered at Queen and Parliament streets, as they do every year close to the date, for an event that included live music, speeches, the reading of names, and a moment of silence for the dead.

Among them: Donna Cann, 31; Vincent Clarke, 45; Stanley Dancy, 62; David Didow, 51; Edward Finnigan, 56; John Thomas Flint, 45; Cedomir Sakotic, 59; Ralph Oral Stone, 59; his brother, Vernon Stone, 54; and Victor Whyte, 51.

With the 30-year anniversary approaching, Hall said the memory of that night remains alive in her mind and it is vitally important that the terrible lessons learned and the 10 people who died are not forgotten.

“They had family and friends who they loved and were loved by and their life was snatched away,” she said. “Memories can be short and it is important that we take people back to that night forever.”