LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A dozen Louisville families lost everything after an apartment fire near downtown last week forced them out of their homes.
Now, they're relying on help from the Red Cross. But that lifeline is about to break for some.
Last week, Louisville Fire responded to a 12-unit apartment fire on South Brook Street. Louisville Metro Arson said it started from smoking material in an ashtray on the second floor.
The fire left 12 families without a place to live.
"Ya know my kids can’t be kids hopping around from hotel to hotel," resident Deandrea Woodruff said. "It's like if I don’t work all of this overtime me and my kids would be living in our car."
Woodruff and her two kids called their apartment unit home since 2020. Everything they owned, except for the clothes on their backs, is gone.
"I have been working 16 hours for the past four days, oh I don’t want to cry, just to have a place for me and my kids to go because this is all we had and ya know we lost everything," she said.
Woodruff is not alone.
"Monday I woke up in a bed and today I’m ping-ponging from hotel to hotel," said Katrell Sanders, who, along with her five kids, lived right below the apartment where the fire is believed to have started. She has called the building home for six years.
The Red Cross gave most everyone in the building close to $700 to tide them over until their insurance kicks in. All of the residents have insurance, as required by their lease.
But the tide has crested and Sanders said she's running on fumes. She said her renters insurance wouldn't pay until they see a report from the fire department.
"I have reached out to other girls that lived here and no one has gotten a fire report from the property management," she said.
The caution tape that surrounded the building is gone or torn away. The building was boarded up, at least partially, the day after the fire.
What the fire didn't destroy was stolen by thieves.
"They stole TVs, Xboxes, clothes, shoes ... the property people left our windows open to where they can get in and steal all of our stuff," said Woodruff.
Stealing from women and their kids after they lost everything.
"My kids want to come home because this is all they know," Woodruff said. "They want their shoes, their clothes, their TVs, their Xboxes, ya know, they want to be able to be kids."
The property management company refunded the security deposits, but doesn't have apartments available for the 12 families that lost their homes.
GoFundMe pages have been set up for some of the families displaced by the fire.
To donate to Sanders' page, click here. To donate to Woodruff's page, click here.
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