Posted on 03/16/2006 5:36:30 AM PST by FerdieMurphy
A toppled candle destroyed the home and belongings of an out-of-work nurse and her 10 children
During the late-afternoon confusion, a candle flame grew Monday into a potentially deadly blaze in the home where Kerren Laitaille had been raising her 10 children.
In a matter of minutes, the fire destroyed family pictures, most of their clothes, beds, just about everything they owned. Everything, that is, except their faith.
“It’s shown me I’m blessed with my kids and shown me people do care and are there for you,” Laitaille said Wednesday morning in her all-too-temporary home: a room at Hawthorn Suites in North Naples.
After the fire, the Collier County Red Cross set her up in the plush hotel room for three days, and the hotel offered an additional day at its own expense. That gave Laitaille, a 34-year-old out-of-work nurse and single mother, until 11 a.m. Friday to find a new place.
She doesn’t know what she will do when check-out time arrives. Her old home, which she rented, is no longer inhabitable.
In the meantime, her children, who range in age from 5 months to 15 years, have been watching television and playing video games to pass the time. Those who are old enough to go to school can’t because they don’t have a change of clothes.
For her part, Laitaille has been living in a controlled state of anxiety. Reading the Bible, she said, has kept doubt from consuming her the way the fire raged through her Golden Gate house.
Like most fires, this one started small.
Someone, perhaps one of the younger children, accidentally upended a candle in the master bathroom. The flame must have landed on or near a clothes basket because it spread quickly, said Victor Hill, a spokesman with the Golden Gate fire department.
A pungent odor filled the house at 5280 20th Place S.W. When Laitaille opened her bedroom door to see what was the matter, she encountered a wall of flames. She hollered for everyone to get out.
One of her sons, 13-year-old Derrick St. Claire, guided the others to safety, displaying remarkable calm.
“First, I had to get the small ones out,” the boy recalled Wednesday. “Then, I had to get the girls out, and then the rest of the boys out. Then we had to dial 911. We had everyone out of the house and safe.”
Golden Gate firefighters received the call at 5:55 p.m. and arrived at the house three minutes later, Hill said. Smoke poured from the eaves of the roof, making the house resemble a pot of boiling water with the lid still on top. The fire would go on to cause $50,000 in damage, Hill added.
Within 10 minutes, the fire was under control, but Laitaille’s life was spinning in the other direction.
A neighbor she had never spoken to before would turn out to be what Laitaille later called a “guardian angel.” The woman, a single mother of five children herself, tried to calm a disconsolate Laitaille and urged her not to re-enter the burning home.
Barbara Bekich, 38, stayed with the family for three hours in front of their ruined home as firefighters finished putting out the fire and concluded their investigation. She raided her children’s closets to give the family clothes and brought them diapers, Pop Tarts, water and Cheezits.
“Really,” Bekich said of Laitaille, “she needed a hand held.”
More help came when the Red Cross gave the family a $400 debit card to help replace clothes and other items lost to the fire. Laitaille said Wednesday she hadn’t used the card yet because she thought it hadn’t been activated.
But Jerry Welty, emergency services director for the Collier Red Cross, said it was ready to use when he handed it to her. Laitaille and her family were one of three families the Collier Red Cross has helped after fires during this week alone, Welty said.
Welty said he couldn’t remember the agency ever dealing with such a large single family. The suite the charity rented for her has three king-size beds and a pull-out sofa.
Laitaille, a native of the Bahamas who moved to Miami at 7 years of age, decided from an early age she wanted a big family. That way, each child would have someone to rely on and be relied upon. She was once engaged to be married to the man who fathered eight of her children, but he moved back to the east coast instead.
Since her van broke down two months ago, she has been unable to work as a private nurse and has been living on child support. A family friend this week put up the money to rent a van for her to get around.
Welty said that since the Red Cross only offers short-term help, he hoped another charity would step in by the end of the week to help the family find housing.
Laitaille, who grew up in the Baptist church, has turned to her faith to ease her frayed emotions. On Tuesday night, she read the comforting Psalm 23 seven times.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” it reads. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. ...”
>>>I would like to help her, but not just to hand over money, but to give her a leg up and help her find self sufficiency.>>>
Seems like she's had enough of the 'leg up' thing going.
I haven't been to a hotel in a gazillion years, but I hear they provide Playstations/XBoxes/video games to their guests. An establishment such as the one they're staying at, would have these amenities.
I knew when I clicked on this thread that I was going to read some nasty comments, but this one is realllly unbelievable, so far.
Let's see, the man who she was engaged to(wait for the preacher and the wedding band, honey)fathered 8 of her children, then took a hike. That does not make her a slut. Consider this: in many states, living together for the length of time it took to create 8 children constitutes a common law marriage. It says that she's been surviving on child support. I saw no mention of public assistance.
Now tell me how the woman was supposed to get job training so that she could be as good as y'all? Should she have aborted her kids? For some, a disaster is only a broken vehicle away from happening. Until that happened, she was working. As for the comments about her employment, these jobs consist of cleaning, cooking, helping the patient bathe, making sure they take their medication, and monitoring blood pressure. The pay is usually not more than minumum wage.
You don't get unemployment benefits if your vehicle breaks down. Btw, love the bus schedules. How is she supposed to take the kids to daycare, then transfer for a couple of hours(I've ridden buses when my transmission died), get to your job on time, then do it again to pick up the little ones? Get real.
Lighten up people. Always remember, "there but for the grace of God go I".
600 dollars a month is what they gave us also. On these threads people complain that those with food stamps buy steaks. That's why. Nearly every bit of food stamps we had was used to stock up on sale items. Sometimes those sale items were steak. Two children later we are now a family of seven and our food budget is only 400 dollars. I have to talk myself into that when I hear of families with a 50 dollar a week food budget and a bazillion kids. LOL.
But that child support must have been generous to have a house with a "master bathroom". Where does the "child support" come from? One of the daddies or the state? I do question the "nurse" part. Ten kids? When did she have time for the education, much less work? Thirty-four years old and ten kids? Questions questions. Anyway, it's not the kids' fault - I feel sorry for them now.
Latialle's older kids ought ot be in school during the day, which nixes using them for childcare.
Have you priced childcare for multiple babies and preschoolers?
Not to mention finding a practical nursing gig that doesn't require shift work. The shift work alone, not to mention no reliable transportation, would make it hard to find and pay for childcare, and on $10 an hour (maybe)?
Still, this woman's incredibly stupid and selfish choices to bear 10 children with no man willing to provide for them...ought to be grounds for rigorous investigation and forced rehabilitation into self sufficiency. Before the illegitimate grandchildren start popping out of her teenagers and showing up in front of her TV set for another generation of welfare idiocy....
Whose your daddy? Uncle Sam, of course. Why is a nurse unemployed when there's such a shortage of hurses? If she isn't employed, why wasn't she watching her little ones so weren't playing with fire? I certainly wouldn't want to rent property to her after they've already burned one place down, but I'm sure good old Uncle Sam would call that discrimination and sue the property owner.
In Naples? I'm not buying this guilt trip at all. I went into a gas station on Pine Ridge two weeks ago, and the sign on the door offered a 1K signing bonus for an asst. manager position. That's cashier with a fancy title.
As the song says, "My give-a-damn's busted".
We're on the same page there. Though generally I suggest, rather than forcing someone into a rehab program, simply to shut off the money spigots and let them hit bottom if they don't respond appropriately. I'm all in favor of classes to help irresponsible people, if the students join voluntarily and the classes aren't funded with tax dollars.
Oh wait, I forgot another point that I wanted to make. The 13 yr old had the discipline and courage to make sure everyone got out alive. Of course he's heading for jail. /sarc
That's another question the article doesn't address. Generally, candles are much more expensive than electric lights... so why was there a candle burning in the bathroom? "Because they're so poor" doesn't add up; I'm far from poor (finally), and I don't use candles much because they're more expensive than normal light bulbs. Growing up we only had candles for Christmas and power outages.
She should be fixed like me cat Luca was. Mandatory fixing for this one.
Uhhhhhhhhhhh. 10 kids maybe? I don't know how a single mom could work and take care of 10 kids.
If that's how you'd describe someone who nearly kills her (apparently) unsupervised chidren by allowing them to burn candles and set their (probably rented) house ablaze, I'd hate to see what you think would amount to 'doing poorly by them'.
Not to mention food stamps, that would likely be paid no matter what she made with 10 dependants.
But yes, we grew up on oatmeal, grits, butterbeans and cornbread. The problem is people want to eat junk and fashion food of sorts and not the stuff you actually have to COOK. God forbid.
Oh yes, let's let her and her family hit bottom. The state will take her kids and put them in foster homes. Since all some of you care about is the bottom line, figure out just how much more taxpayer money will go to paying the foster care. Hint: a hell of a lot more money than helping the woman get into a house, and maybe fixing her van.
Did we all get up on the grumpy side of the bed this morning?
Exactly. That is ten more screwed up kids who won't be able to contribute to society, and will live on a diet of public assistance and excuses.
Thanks Mom.
>>>Should she have aborted her kids?
There is a such thing called BIRTH CONTROL. And provided for free in most cities. So no excuse. NOONE with a half a thimble of intellegence believes that it is ok to have 10 kids and no way to provide for them. This woman is stupid and the problem with this society is that there is NO CONSEQUENCE for stupidity anymore.
Ten children with a job that pays minimum wage?
How much could her former fiancee make that his child support could help maintain a decent life for his children?
Taking responsibility for your actions is part of being an adult.
While calling her a slut seems a little to much, one of the definitions of the word is a promiscuous woman. Outside of her 8 children she had two more with someone else after her finance left.
Since she continues to expect different results from the same behavior perhaps insane would be a better description.
When you continue to bring fatherless children into the world that you have no hope of providing for, you're not living your faith.
This women seems to be living life with secular behavior while giving lip service to her faith.
I wouldn't rush to give her saint status just because she didn't abort her children. Aborting responsibility for your actions is also a sin.
The state should neither be in the business of taking my money (to fund welfare) NOR taking people's kids away. So we're into an infinite loop here: every time you respond, "Ah, but then the government will..." I will answer, "The government shouldn't be doing that either."
figure out just how much more taxpayer money will go to paying the foster care.
The government shouldn't be funding foster care.
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