PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Displaced residents of the Lindley Towers apartment complex in Logan that partially collapsed on Sept. 14 are getting some much-needed assistance.
Many have been unable to retrieve their personal items from inside their apartments, as the city has deemed the building which collapsed a month ago "eminently dangerous." But representatives from several city agencies Thursday set up at the Multi-Agency Resource Center nearby to help provide documents and resources.
“My anxiety is through the roof,” former Lindley Towers resident Renee McCain repeated.
McCain said she’s had difficulty adjusting after last month’s collapse. She said she’s currently staying with a friend while her children are under someone else’s care, but said having access to city agencies to get her personal paperwork together has been helpful.
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“We got birth certificates — we had to pay — because they [were] left in the building, so I had to pay for my and my two children's birth certificates,” said McCain, who also received a Philadelphia identification card. “They’ve got the welfare people in there if you need that kind of assistance.”
Stephanie Brown was also among the residents who stopped by the center to get information from the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management, Office of Homeless Services, Community Legal Services, Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, Tenant Union Representative Network, and other agencies providing information.
“Everybody was able to get their stuff, their birth certificates, their identification that they needed at the time,” said Brown.
“They're giving me Social Security to get reimbursed for the rent I’ve been paying illegally from the landlord,” said former resident Joseph Maxwell. “They have a few resources for medical issues and they said something about how they might have some type of [free] furniture.”
Raquel Green said the information she received was useful, but the procedure to get it was tedious.
“It’s very hard,” said Green. “It's just a process, you know. Everything is a process.”
She said she’s overwhelmed with the number of things she needs to do to rebuild her life right now.
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“We’re going into winter. The kids, I’m trying to transfer them to another school, and then the meetings we have … every day, we have to do something,” said Green. “But at the same time, still look for an apartment, still make sure the kids get to school and still try to go to work … it's a lot to deal with.”
She said something as simple as not having access to items in her former apartment has been a hardship.
“Last week, it was raining. I couldn’t even go anywhere because I have no proper stuff to put on. So now I'm using the money that I'm supposed to be saving for an apartment to use to clothe me now. So I don’t feel like this moving money is enough,” said Green.
“It’s very hard. I just want this to be over with.”
City officials testified at a hearing on Sept. 22 that the building was not safe for tenants leading up to its partial collapse. A firefighter said his colleagues had gone to the building 25 times and noticed enough issues to reach out to the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections three times.
The owners of Lindley Towers and the residents agreed that day that they would be put up in a hotel for 28 days, with options to break their lease with their first and last months' rent refunded or sign a new lease with the same company at a different building.