Opa-Locka Fire Leaves Multiple Families Homeless
OPA-LOCKA (CBS4) - More than a dozen families are homeless after a Sunday fire swept through part of an apartment building and some victims say they are desperate.
"I'm diabetic and I am scared," said Willia Stackhouse, a 71-year-old wheelchair-bound resident who was forced out of the apartment that she shares with her daughter, Felicia Garvin, at 1425 N.W. 22nd Ave.
"I am really scared," Stackhouse told CBS4's Peter D'Oench. "After the Red Cross temporary shelter runs out, I worry that I will have nowhere to sleep, nowhere to eat, nowhere to go. That's what I am worried about. I am 71-years-old. I can't get out of my wheelchair. I am crippled. I have no money. I have no money."
"I am worried too," said Garvin. "My mother and I have nowhere to go. I have been standing out here since 11 pm on Sunday with nowhere to go. And look at my mom in the wheelchair."
Authorities say the blaze appears to have been caused by an electrical problem. They are looking into whether faulty wiring was to blame or whether a sudden electrical surge sparked the fire.
Edna Jackson, a mother of two, says the fire started in her 2nd floor apartment.
She took D'Oench through the blackened remains of her apartment and said, "It is electrical. You see where it started in these walls. You see how black the walls are. I smelled the smoke and called the Fire Department. Everyone came over here and then the smoke damage was extending to other apartments."
The Fire Department was also forced to evacuate residents of a nearby building.
"All my sons stuff was destroyed," said Jackson. "It is hard. You can see I lost everything. It's a mess. I have no idea what is going to happen. I will see what happens and go from there. This is disastrous. I would not wish this on anyone else."
"What can I say," said Jackson. "People need to make sure that their building is maintained so people have some place to stay and to live properly."
Daniel Jaramillo of SPM, which manages the buildings, said his company was trying to find alternative housing for the victims.
"We've already done that for three families," he told D'Oench. "And we hope to solve everything within a month."
"This is purely an electrical fire," he said. Jaramillo insisted that his company did everything it could to maintain the buildings properly.
"The electricity was kept up ok," he said. "I don't know what caused this exactly. Maybe an electrical surge or some other sort of accident. It is not fair to say we could have done more."
That is little consolation to fire victims.
"The Red Cross took care of me last night," said Stackhouse. "But I just don't know where I am going to go. I have no money. Nothing. It is hard. Really hard."
The city has launched its own investigation to see if there are any code violations in the two buildings.
It's not clear when the fire victims will be able to return to their apartments.
