Fire-Displaced Tenants Feel Burned

As Sangeetha watched her two sons eat ​“Grab and Go” breakfasts in their current ​“home” — a Hamden hotel — she was looking ahead for a new place to live, not looking back.

Sangeetha, her husband, and their children are four of the 90 individuals who were displaced after a four-alarm fire Saturday night at the Chestnut Hill Apartments.

Every resident got out safely. But all 57 units in the building at 925 Mix Avenue have been shut down for the foreseeable future due to varying degrees of damage. Hamden Fire Marshal Brian Dolan estimated that it will be months before the building can be inhabited again.

The American Red Cross and Hamden’s Community Services office have been working all week to help residents find new housing and storage, access mental health resources, and secure funded hotel rooms for the next 30 days, among other efforts. The Keefe Community Center estimated on Wednesday night that they have so far booked around 40 residents into three hotels within New Haven, Hamden, and West Haven.

At one of the hotels Thursday morning (the town asked to keep the specific locations private), Sangeetha and other displaced tenants said they were devastated to have lost their longtime homes. But they have no intention of returning to the Chestnut Hill Apartments, which were owned by Franklin Communities.

“We were already thinking about moving out, but we didn’t think this would be the reason,” Sangeetha said as her 4- and 11-year-old sons solemnly munched on their mini-muffins.

Sangeetha is a stay-at-home mom whose husband works as a software engineer. They moved to Hamden eight years ago from India. ​“We went directly from JFK to Chestnut Hill,” she recalled.

She said she was a ​“loyal renter” at Chestnut Hill for all eight years. But during that time period, she said, the owners were slow to make repairs and consistently unresponsive.

Now she and other tenants said they are upset, and suspicious, about how the owners managed the aftermath of the fire. They also wonder what caused it.

Fire Marshal Brian Dolan does, too. He said in a call with the Independent today that the cause of the fire remains undetermined. A private insurance investigator will be joining the Hamden Fire Department soon to look further into the source of the disaster. He does not believe the fire was intentionally set.

Meanwhile, residents have speculated as to whether faulty air conditioners, solar panels, or even fireworks could have set off the fire. Chestnut Hills property manager Joanna Marchitto has dismissed all of these ideas as highly unlikely.

Sorae Kim, another tenant who lived in the complex with her husband and two children and is now staying in a hotel, reported similar experiences as Sangeetha’s. Kim lived in the apartment for 7 years. She said the beautiful view outside of her window was one of the most redeeming features.

But, she said, ​“almost everyday, there was some complaint.” The laundry machine regularly left brown stains on her clothing. The air conditioning system always seemed to be broken. She said that those who worked there had ​“bad etiquette.”

“They were so rude and mean,” she reported.

Kim is a professional singer. Her husband is a conductor for the New Haven Chamber Orchestra. They came here from Korea when Kim’s husband decided to pursue his doctorate at Yale.

Before the fire, they had been packing their belongings to move to a new home in Kentucky at the end of July, where her husband just found a new job as a music director for a church.

On June 26, she and her husband were working while their children slept in the bedroom they all share together. Around 11:40 p.m. they heard sirens. Minutes later, firefighters pulled the fire alarm from within the building; it did not go off on its own, she said.

Kim grabbed her kids and opened the door to discover a hallway filled with smoke.

“We lost everything,” Kim said, tears lining her eyes. Her family lived on the third floor of the building, right below the void space in the building where the fire is said to have originated. 

In a video taken days after Kim was allowed back into her apartment alongside an escort from the Fire Department, all of her belongings are burned to the ground.

When she sees her closet, she lets out a sob. That’s where Kim stored the dresses she wore to concerts over the years; her husband’s tuxedos were also ruined. ​“There were so many special memories,” she said. ​“Precious memories.”

Her family’s insurance company offered them only $5,000, though everything in their apartment has been destroyed.

Kim, like others, said that she felt that the building should have offered to cover more of the costs.

Marchitto said that she requires every tenant to have their own renter’s insurance. ​“But people are differentially covered,” she said, and ​“many don’t have enough coverage.”

Assistant Property Manager Ralph Petruzzelli said that ​“everybody really learned a big lesson,” including himself, about insurance policies.

“There’s a lot of anger right now,” Marchitto added. ​“There are residents who call crying, and residents who try to rip me up.”

The property managers have canceled the leases of all 57 units, offered to return everyone’s security deposits, and reimbursed folks for the last four days of their rent.

“That’s peanuts,” Sangeetha said.

The Red Cross has been providing residents with $500 prepaid debit cards to help them purchase food and water for the next week.

However, it has been difficult to coordinate communication during this traumatic time. Marchitto said that she and Petruzzelli called every displaced resident, but that they only got through to about one third of them.

She sent out numerous messages via email over the course of the week, from instructions as to how to cancel utilities to contact information for the Keefe Center and the Red Cross.

Chestnut Hill residents who were not affected by the fire set up a GoFundMe to support their neighbors. Macchiato also sent that link to the broader Franklin community.

Still, it has been hard for most to figure out next steps.

Displaced renter Bonsa Tufa, a sports journalist who works at the Stafford Motor Speedway, checked into the hotel this morning.

On Saturday night he arrived home at around 1 a.m. to find numerous fire trucks from different towns crowded around his building. He remembered how his neighbors slept in cars or at friends’ homes. Tufa himself stayed up all night seeking out information and explanation as to what had taken place.

In the morning, he spoke to his neighbors, who said that they had collectively called over dozens of hotels the night before and been unable to find a single room to stay in. On Sunday, Tufa was able to check into a place in Wallingford. Days later that the town called him and offered to put him in a local hotel for a month.

At around 9 a.m. he entered a small hotel room with one suitcase of clothes. ​“This place isn’t as nice as the other one,” he said. ​“But this one’s free.”

Tufa said that he plans to stay in the hotel for the next 30 days before looking for a new apartment somewhere closer to his work. It’s been difficult to find available housing.

He moved to Chestnut Hill in 2019 from Maryland to pursue his master’s in journalism from Quinnipiac. He graduated this year.

“I saw my first Nascar race on TV in 2004,” he remembered. ​“A tire of one of the cars caught fire,” he said. ​“That flaming tire is what got me hooked.”

Tufa lived in the apartment alone for two years. He said he was one of the ​“lucky” ones whose belongings were relatively spared damage.

For Sangeetha and Kim, the fire meant the destruction of the place where they had started and raised their families. Despite their anger over the handling of the situation and their dissatisfaction with Franklin Communities, they mourned not only the loss of belongings, but the ruination of their homes.

Sangeetha’s son, Atharv, turned 4 the week before the fire. ​“That is our last memory in the apartment,” she said. ​“It was a small family celebration.”

The residents are required to remove their stuff from their apartments in order to receive their security deposits back. Sangeetha said that there are dirty dishes in her sink, but no water to clean them. There is, of course, no ventilation in the building, so she and others have been struggling to move their things during the recent heat wave.

“I’m just praying the roof doesn’t fall in when I’m inside,” Sangeetha sighed.

Both Kim and Sangeetha’s children attend Shepherd Glen elementary school. They said the principal and teachers have reached out to link both them and their children to counseling and to offer support and essential goods.

Kim said that the fire was hardest on herself and her sixth-grade daughter. ​“She is traumatized,” Kim said of her daughter, beginning to cry. ​“She wakes up screaming at night.”

Sangeetha noted that she has observed her oldest son change dramatically over the past few days. ​“He’s acting more mature, helping us pack, and taking care of his brother,” she said.

“Maybe we can grow with experience,” she smiled. ​“Not just age.”

Eleven-year-old Advaith said he hopes his new home will have plenty of space where he and his brother can play together. ​“Not too small and congested,” he said.