A Vancouver pastor and city councillor are calling for an inquiry into why the city didn't shut down an illegal east-side rooming house before a tragic fire killed three men last week.

The fire broke out just before midnight on Dec. 21 at a home in the 2800-block of Pandora Street. The city says the house has a history of bylaw infractions, and has ordered the owner to demolish it by January.

Rev. Barry Morris of the Longhouse Council of Native Ministry says an investigation is needed to uncover why that order wasn't made earlier.

"You know the old saying: Justice delayed is justice denied," Morris told CTV News.

He knew the victims and says they stayed at the home out of necessity. The conditions were terrible, he says, and the city knew about it.

Bylaw officers visited the home in August, and ordered the owner to make repairs and stop renting the home to multiple tenants. Inspectors followed up in November and found few of the repairs had been made, and the building was still being used as a rooming house.

"It's a process question as much as it is substance. What needed to be done and why was it taking so long?" Morris said.

Some of the concerns about the home were that the heat didn't work, doors didn't lock and smoke alarms weren't working. Morris says little was done about those problems.

"Delaying that sensitive kind of repair work -- be it electrical, plumbing -- that kind of stuff may be behind what led to the fire or what may have simply made that place a powder keg, if you will, ready to explode," he said.

NPA Coun. Suzanne Anton is echoing the call for a third-party inquiry.

"We need to have someone else come in and have a look. Are the city bylaws adequate, were they being enforced properly, could the city have acted faster?" she said.

Coun. Andrea Reimer said that calling for an inquiry before the fire investigation is complete would be premature. But she added that staff a preparing a report about the home for council, and it should be ready by next week.

Seven people were living inside the home when the blaze ignited. Some of them panhandled on East Hastings Street near Nanaimo Street, and were well known in the neighbourhood.

"They were friendly; they never hurt or picked on anybody," Bob, a panhandler, said.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Brent Shearer