Most parents want their children to be carefree, happy, and safe.
For flood evacuees like Alicia Anderson that means a West End apartment block.
"I was placed from hotel to hotel," said Anderson.
Anderson and her family have now lived at 519 Burnell Street since December 2013.
Before that they stayed in a total of 8 hotel rooms, since her home community, Lake St. Martin was evacuated in 2011.
Unable to go back, Anderson and about 300 hundred other evacuees now call the 100 year old apartment block home.
Each of the 88 suites are fully furnished and renovated from top to bottom.
Russ Knight is the developer.
He said he invested $8 million dollars to get the building ready specifically for flood evacuees as a way to help them cope with the reality of being displaced.
"They've lost their home. They've lost their community. They've lost their means to make a living. They're hunters. They're fishers - all of that. That's all been taken away from them," said Knight.
Knight rents out the fully furnished suites for two thousand dollars a month--all utilities included.
For him, it's a business.
To Anderson, it's much more than that.
"Russ has a big heart, yup he has an awesome heart you know if it wasn't for him I probably would've been still moving around from place to place," said Anderson.
The building is not without its challenges though. Late September a woman visiting family members there was severely beaten and eventually died of her injuries. Police charged her boyfriend for her death.
Still, Knight says, the benefits outweigh the risks of helping evacuees.
He's currently renovating another building to house even more.
