EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — For about two and a half weeks now, Doneasha Smith and her family have just been getting by.
“We just feel out of place, we feel very displaced, and it’s an accommodation, but it's not home,” Smith said.
It's been 16 days since a fire ripped through the Smiths' home; she lived in the Terrace Towers apartments in East Cleveland and said her family had just moved in only six days before the fire.
“It was very hard, it was very hard, and it hurts because I was just getting acquainted with my little apartment,” Smith said.
Right now, smith is staying in a hotel room paid for by Terrace Tower's property company RHM Management; her family is among the more than 100 tenants displaced.
“I’ve been trying to help some of the residents that are here maintain their meds, doctors’ appointments and even store runs because I’m one of the tenants out here who actually has a vehicle,” Smith said.
The East Cleveland Fire Chief said the fire was electrical and that he didn’t find any fault or negligence on Terrace Towers, but residents living in the building said they’ve noticed electrical issues, specifically referencing the fire alarm.
News 5 has learned 60 tenants and counting have acquired Bobby DiCello as their legal counsel; some tenants claim that maintenance issues in the building are nothing new.
“We need to hold landlords accountable, and the landlords who are not held accountable make the lives of ordinary people miserable,” DiCello said.
“The fire alarm goes off every day; you could be asleep, it could be early in the morning, late at night, and it goes off; why? I cannot tell you,” Smith said.
Right now, DiCello, said, other than hotel rooms, his clients have only gotten $120 dollars and a pizza from the management company, adding that many of them are struggling to find food and they're grateful for the handful of churches and nonprofits that have stepped in to help.
“It’s so hard because again, that same day, July 3, my family had just went grocery shopping; a lot of the families had just went grocery shopping for the holidays,” Smith said. “We’re out of our food, and now we’re eating what’s given to us; some of us spent a few hundred dollars on food; what are we supposed to do about that?”
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