A GoFundMe page has been started for a man whose houseboat sunk in the Gorge Waterway on Friday.
Tiferet Welch started the page for her brother, who she identifies only as Barry. Barry, she says, was found clinging “for his life, to his boat, his home” when he was rescued by members of the Saanich and Victoria police departments on Dec. 27.
Officers responded to the sinking houseboat around 4:30 a.m. where they found Barry and his dog clinging to the side of the sinking home.
RELATED: Saanich, Victoria police rescue man and his dog from sinking houseboat
“His urgent cries for help were heard by a passerby on the bridge over those same waters,” Welch writes. “That passerby, that ‘angel’, alerted emergency services.”
Welch writes that her brother is 66 years old and suffered a series a strokes only six weeks before the incident. She writes that he lived on the boat for five years and that it brought him “a sense of pride and security.”
“He has lost everything: an “everything” which, at the end-of-the-day, was still, to most, not very much,” she writes, adding that the houseboat and its contents are unsalvagable and uninsured.
“He will take his place with the over 1,500 others who are homeless in Victoria, B.C.,” Welch writes. She asks the community for support helping her brother back on his feet.
“While any monetary funds raised will be of tangible assistance, it will be the heart-warming gestures of care and compassion that my brother, Barry, will be moved by.”
As of Sunday night, $751 was raised of the campaign’s $1,800 goal.
READ ALSO: VicPD commandeers civilian boats to reach woman screaming, ‘he’s trying to kill me’
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