Half of families displaced by DeKalb apartment fire still searching for new homes

DeKALB – After a fire tore through DeKalb apartment buildings days before Christmas, displacing 32 families, city and local officials said about half of those impacted are still looking for new homes.

Rylie Loucks-Kues, director of community programing and outreach for Family Service Agency of DeKalb County, said as of Friday, 15 of the displaced families have found new permanent housing.

“The other just about 50% are still either staying in hotels or they are couch surfing between friends and family,” Loucks-Kues said. “We’re about 50% done at this point.”

The residents displaced by the fire that spread through 1024 W. Hillcrest Drive on Dec. 22 have dealt with a variety of hardships over the past month, including the loss of some of their most cherished items. Loucks-Kues said those families still need community support. She suggested financial donations to the Family Service Agency of DeKalb County as a way for concerned community members to continue supporting the victims.

“We are trying our best to keep them in hotels, but their insurance claims have kind of ended so we are being mindful of how much money we’re spending on their hotels versus how much we need to reserve for them to move into their new home,” Loucks-Kues said.

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An excavator puts debris in a dumpster after a portion of the apartments at 1024 W. Hillcrest Drive in DeKalb was torn down earlier in the day. The structure was ravaged by fire on Dec. 22, 2024, and condemned. (Mark Busch)

The agency and other local organizations, including The American Red Cross, DeKalb Township and City of DeKalb and area churches also had volunteers come together in December to help families in the immediate aftermath. They solicited donations from the community, helped house and provide meals.

DeKalb Fire Chief Mike Thomas said his department believes the fire started by accident, but the specific cause can’t be determined.

“Our investigation just said it was an accidental, undetermined cause,” Thomas said. “We couldn’t do a full investigation because of the conditions of the building.”

“The resiliency that these families have come to the table with is incredible, they haven’t lost hope this whole time.”

—  Rylie Loucks-Kues

The building most impacted by the fire, 1024 W. Hillcrest was condemned by city officials. Two adjacent buildings located at 934 and 930 Greenbrier Road, while not condemned, were deemed uninhabitable as a result of the blaze.

The fire started inside at unit at 1024 W. Hillcrest and then quickly spread to the roof and neighboring buildings in the complex, which used to be known as Hunter Trifrat.

“That was a difficult fire because it was in void spaces when our people arrived there, which makes it more dangerous for even our people,” Thomas said. “But we were very happy that everybody got out.”

Demolition of 1024 W. Hillcrest began on Jan. 15. DeKalb City Manager Bill Nicklas said the controlled destruction was necessary for the Greenbrier Road buildings to be reopened.

“They started taking it down on Wednesday morning and they got basically the walls down, and now they’re working on the debris and pulling it out of the basement,” Nicklas said. “The pressure against that middle section, which is 934 Greenbrier has been removed, which is good.”

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Two DeKalb firefighters don their gear as they prepare to join the crews fighting a multi-building apartment fire on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024, in the 1000 block of West Hillcrest Drive in DeKalb. (Kelsey Rettke)

Residents might eventually be able to return to 934 and 930 Greenbrier, but not yet.

Nicklas said the property owner will have to find a way to protect the water and electrical lines, which were run into those buildings through the now destroyed building at 1024 W. Hillcrest.

Like the three impacted buildings, the estimated 60 victims of the fire did not all suffer equally, Loucks-Kues said.

“We have some who were able to recover everything they had in their previous units, some that lost everything and some that are just in between that,” Loucks-Kues said.

Thomas said he wants area residents to make sound decisions when it comes to insuring their property.

“That was a lot of people that were displaced.” Thomas said. “We feel for them, and hopefully, hindsight’s 2020 right, but hopefully folks are getting the message that renters insurance is important, especially when it comes to these types of situations. It sounds like a number of these folks had renters insurance, which is great.”

At the time of the fire, Loucks-Kues told Shaw Local all residents of the properties had rental insurance because it was a requirement by the landlord.

The Family Service Agency doesn’t have a list of specific needs for the impacted families. Instead Loucks-Kues said families have been given gift cards and vouchers to area businesses, like the Country Store Thrift Shop in DeKalb.

“The resiliency that these families have come to the table with is incredible, they haven’t lost hope this whole time,” Loucks-Kues said.

One of the victims of the fire, a single mother, has struggled to find new permanent housing due to rental income requirements, which often require a prospective tenant to earn three times the monthly rent in gross monthly income.

“Even though she’s been denied and denied and denied probably over five times at this point, she hasn’t lost hope this whole time,” Loucks-Kues said. “And that’s the same for all the families we’ve worked with.”

Loucks–Kues thinks the winter months are an especially difficult time of the year to find housing. She said she’s proud of the ways the fire victims have conducted themselves in the aftermath.

As some residents hold out hope to eventually be able to return to 930 and 934 Greenbrier, Nicklas said building owner has already completed plumbing and electrical work. More repair is needed before tenants can return, however.

“What needs to be done now so that tenants can come back in is there’s a lot cleaning that needs to be done in that middle section,” Nicklas said.

Additionally, a sprinkler system in the basement of each building needs to be retested.

“Those are the two sections of the building that did not suffer greatly from fire, but they were knocked out,” Nicklas said. “Because of the cold and there’s no heat in the building the sprinkler lines have to be tested so they don’t become Niagara Falls.”