Displaced FoxRun residents scramble to find housing
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Still plenty of questions from some of the 32 people who were displaced because of a Christmas morning fire in Clifton Park at the FoxRun Apartments. Some feel the property management company isn’t giving them enough time to find another residence.
Many of those impacted FoxRun residents were scrambling on Monday to find out where they’ll be staying next. Some feared they may end up homeless.
On Christmas Eve Caitlin Brady saw crews had been working on the unit above the utility room where the fire occurred.
“They had taken the whole ceiling, and all the walls out of his apartment. Because, from my understanding, there was a pipe that burst above his that caused his ceiling to cave in and that apartment is directly above all the panels and the electrical service for the whole building,” said Brady.
She said she does not trust the property management company, the Solomon Organization LLC, but finding a new place between back-to-back holidays, under the parameters they’ve given her, has made it nearly impossible.
“A day in the hotel when it’s a holiday is great but you can’t conduct any business. No one‘s gonna answer phones – insurance, realtors, landlords, anyone. And now we’re going into another two days of holidays and here we are already into January. So, these places are already rented,” said Brady.
Another displaced resident from building 23, Shantell Stevens, echoed those concerns.
“We are pretty much being strong armed into staying at FoxRun,” said Stevens. She said they need more time. “I was out yesterday all day looking for places on the marketplace. People would write back to me, make appointments to go look and then I’d show up and then it was a scam,” said Stevens.
In addition to housing concerns, Stevens said she’s worried about smoke damage to her belongings. In particular, her late son’s belongings.
“I had a son who passed away in 2005 and I went in there the other day and went to take all of the pictures off the walls and it’s got brown from the smoke all the way around it. This is stuff I can’t replace,” said Stevens. “There’s a lot of smoke damage in there and our stuff is sitting in there so every day that it sits in there is one more day that it’s ruined a little bit more.”
Brady described what her biggest concern is at this point.
“Basically not having a home. I can’t have my son, obviously with no place to stay. I can’t couch surf with friends because I have three dogs,” said Brady. “As a company of that size, how do you not have some kind of protocol in place for something like this? It’s not the first time it’s happened. It won’t be the last.”
We reached out to a spokesperson for the Solomon Organization LLC who said the impacted residents would be relocated within the FoxRun community. Some have already been relocated to units within the complex. But Stevens had one question for the property management.
“Why are they not here? Why is the office manager making decisions or writing to us? There should be somebody standing here, with this many families, that owns that complex and is telling us, ‘Look this is what we’re going to do’.”
If you’re able to help, the Town of Clifton Park is accepting monetary donations for those FoxRun residents. Reach out to the comptroller’s office for more information.