Habitat for Humanity’s East York office has been hit by what’s believed to have been a group of at least four burglars – who broke in and stole the office’s safe, containing over $8,000 in cash.
In addition, damage to the facility by the burglars, according to officials, is estimated at more than $10,000.
Neil Hetherington, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Toronto, said he is outraged and saddened by what he called a “senseless” crime.
“You go through a tremendous amount of emotions after something like this happens, especially anger,” Hetherington said. “How somebody can do this and try to justify this to themselves; it doesn’t make sense.”
Const. Wendy Drummond, media liaison for Toronto police, said authorities still have few leads in the case.
“My understanding is that we haven’t recovered any of the property and that the investigation is still ongoing,” Drummond said.
Drummond also gave advice on how to protect against thieves gaining access to a building: have good lighting around the building, install proper locks and an alarm system, have valuables placed off-site, maintain the building so as to not have things available that allow people to gain entry, and manicure hedges so thieves can’t conceal themselves.”We have a tremendous amount of security,” Hetherington said of the Habitat offices. “We have a security system and the door contacts were not tripped, so it didn’t go off. The person broke the window and carried the safe through the door, with the help of at least three others.”