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Residents Displaced By Bushwick Fire Pick Up Pieces of Charred Lives

By Gwynne Hogan | April 1, 2016 5:42pm | Updated on April 4, 2016 8:43am
 Theresa Rodrigues, a school teacher, collected water damaged photo albums salvaged from the rubble where her home once was.
Theresa Rodrigues, a school teacher, collected water damaged photo albums salvaged from the rubble where her home once was.
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DNAinfo/Gwynne Hogan

BUSHWICK — Residents of four Bushwick buildings devastated in a fire began returning to their charred homes Friday, sifting through the wreckage in search of belongings.

Theresa Rodrigues, a school teacher, clutched a water damaged photo album outside her home.

"It's harder for the boys than it is for me," said Rodrigues, who's sons are 16 and 7 years old.

The three were given an apartment in a shelter in Brownsville where she's felt very welcomed, she said. "Their toys, their X-Box, they don't realize it's just things.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she said, fighting back tears. "Now we're talking about it."

The blaze left 30 households, including 66 adults and 20 children, homeless, according to the FDNY and Celeste Leon from Councilman Rafael Espinal's office that's helping to coordinate relief efforts.

As of Friday, fire marshals had yet to determine the cause of the blaze that the buildings from 1415 to 1429 Dekalb Ave., though a spokesman said it wasn't suspicious.

Housing Preservation and Development, the Red Cross, the NYPD and other city agencies and local non-profits are coordinating work to get people into hotels and homeless shelters, Leon said.

Some displaced by the fire said they couldn't provide HPD with the correct paperwork and feared they'd be out on the streets once the Red Cross stopped paying for a hotel.

"I was in a motel until today, now from tonight I'm in the street," said Franklin Montero, 46, in Spanish, who'd fled the building he'd lived in for 12 years, managing to grab just his passport as he left. 

"Everything burned, [I've got] nothing, nothing, nothing."

Within hours of the fire nearly a dozen GoFundMe Campaigns popped up online for several school teachers who lived in the buildings. Another was raising money for Hommy Pena's karate studio that was destroyed in the flames.

Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council is collecting clothing donations at their 217 Wyckoff Ave. offices. They're accepting clothes for kids and adults of all sizes, organizers there said.

On Friday afternoon Rodrigues stuffed items that workers had pulled from the rubble into a cart and a suitcase given to her by a neighbor, wondering how she was going to get the items to Brownsville. 

"I don't want to ask for help," she said.