The 26 families displaced by last week’s fire at the River Woods Housing Co-op will eventually be able to move back home — although most are facing a long wait to find somewhere to live in the meantime.

There is no official word yet on what caused the blaze that put 76 people out of their homes though co-op’s insurance company has agreed to fund a rebuild.

The lesser-damaged eight to 10 units will take at least six weeks before they are repaired. “The other 16 to 18 units are looking at 12 to 16 months, best case scenario,” said Diane Bennett, the co-op’s president. “Nobody’s getting home anytime soon.”

Denise Wait and her family have been struggling to pull the pieces of their lives back together in the wake of the blaze. “Our place is pretty much a write-off. We were on the ground floor where there’s lots of smoke and water damage. All the electronics are pretty much a write-off. It’s just disgusting. The smell in there is horrible,” she said.

The family’s insurance adjuster found them a place to live but it’s a $5,000-a-month luxury home on the other side of North Vancouver, meaning the kids will have to stay with friends so they can continue going to school.

“We don’t need luxury right now. We just need a roof over our heads,” she said. Competition for family rental units is high and the burned-out residents still having to carry on with day-to-day responsibilities.

The few things they were able to salvage from the fire are the kids’ sports medals and teddy bears “which need some work done on them.”

The fire’s intensity and destruction, however, has been matched only by the generosity of the nearby residents and businesses who have been coming by the co-op’s common area to drop off donations.

“Everyone is really blown away by it,” Bennett said. “It’s heartwarming to think what a fabulous community we are blessed to live in. It’s really hard. Even complete strangers show up. You say ‘Thank you’ but it doesn’t seem enough.”

Residents in the co-op are required to have their own contents insurance, though for some families that’s not enough to cut it.

“Some of our members are very, very low income and (have) very poor insurance coverage,” Bennett said. “When somebody’s only got $12,000 of living expenses, it’s not going to last them very long.”

Co-op members are trying to fundraise for those people. BlueShore Financial has set up a trust for the River Woods fire victims. Donations can be made at the Parkgate branch or by phone for BlueShore members.

There is also a Facebook group, Community Support for River Woods Housing Co-operative, acting as a clearinghouse for matching residents’ needs with potential donors. A FundAid.ca crowdfunding campaign has been created to help raise money the families as well. FundAid is an initiative by Glacier Media (which owns the North Shore News).