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Residents Left Homeless After Fire Say They're Ignored, Treated Like Trash

By Kelly Bauer | April 23, 2016 1:22pm | Updated on April 26, 2016 11:50am
 A fire in South Austin injured two firefighters and left a man dead, an official said.
A fire in South Austin injured two firefighters and left a man dead, an official said.
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CHICAGO — Tenants left homeless after a fire in South Austin feel like they're being treated like "trash," one of them said, and their building isn't being properly repaired.

Gayinga Washington, who lived at the apartment building in the 300 block of North Central Avenue, has had to sleep on a friend's floor with her 5-year-old son since the April 1 fire that killed one man and left two firefighters injured. Some of her neighbors, also left homeless, had to move into shelters or stay with family and friends. Officials said 30 people were displaced after the fire.

Residents of the first floor of the building were allowed to come back — but the building isn't safe to live in, Washington said.

And through it all, Washington said, their landlord has ignored them.

The landlord, whose name Washington and the other tenants haven't been able to track down, hasn't answered calls at the phone number attached to the tenants' leases, Washington said. Instead, they're directed to the building manager, who they always worked with before.

"... She basically said we're on our own and we have to figure out what we're gonna do," Washington said. "There's no communication. It's basically just, 'You're on your own while we basically slap paint on the walls over fire damage.'"

Phone calls to the building's office weren't immediately returned Saturday.

Washington and neighbors were allowed to go to their apartments after the fire to gather necessities, but only some people were allowed to move back in, she said. Residents said they can still smell the fire and workers aren't repairing the building's problems — just covering fire and water damage with paint and making other cosmetic repairs.

Added to those concerns, residents are frustrated they were left homeless or their apartments damaged after having just paid rent for the month, Washington said. She had paid $610 just before the fire rendered her homeless.

Frustrated, the tenants gathered on Saturday to demand the landlord place those left homeless into a hotel, return rent and security deposits to tenants since the building is "unlivable" and provide permanent, low-incoming housing.

"They should at least house us while they make proper repairs. That didn't happen," Washington said. "And they're not reaching out to us in any way at all except to collect rent."

"We were already traumatized by the fire. That's bad enough, losing everything," Washington said. "Then being traumatized after the fire, not being treated like human begins, just being tossed like trash ... [it's] trauma on top of trauma."

Washington said she has been "frustrated and let down by this whole situation." She reached out to Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) and was told he couldn't help much, she said.

Taliaferro said he spoke with some of the tenants and was informed by the city that he couldn't provide them with apartments or public housing, but he could help them find shelters. The residents didn't want that, he said.

"Unfortunately, they weren't willing to talk to me" after that, Taliaferro said.

The building's landlord hasn't responded to Taliaferro, though his office has spoken to a manager who has been "evasive," he said.

Washington said she went to the mayor's office, too, but wasn't able to find help there. She was greeted by police instead of a receptionist, she said.

"It’s been very challenging, to put it nicely," Washington said. "It takes the strength of the Lord to go on. I have to do a lot of prayer.

"... But I keep going because I think about the tenants, I think about the injustice of what’s going on. I think about the man who died, my neighbor who died. The firefighter who got injured for something that should have been fixed. ... That’s what keeps me going."

Washington said the group of tenants are now trying to raise awareness so people know how they have been treated. Highlighting the struggles they've faced, Washington said Katrina Smith, who lives in the building, saved lives by going door to door to alert neighbors of the fire.

Smith, who is on dialysis, has been allowed to move back into the building, Washington said, but now she sits in the "building contaminated by fire damage, breathing that in every day, while waiting for a kidney."

And Smith's 4-year-old niece was traumatized by the fire, Washington said. The girl now screams and cries when she's in the building. She knocks on doors saying, "There's a fire! There's a fire!"

"This affects so many people in so many ways," Washington said. “We can’t move on. We want to let people know the story that’s happening since the fire ’cause it’s still ongoing. We’re still suffering. Not just myself, but everybody on my floor … is now homeless with no help."

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