Fire burns through apartment building in Koreatown, leaving families displaced

Families are left without a home after a massive fire burned through an apartment building in L.A.’s Koreatown.

The fire occurred on Sept. 26 at a building on the 750 block of South Normandie Avenue in the early morning hours.

When firefighters arrived, smoke was billowing from the roof and the flames destroyed multiple apartment units, leaving families displaced and without a place to sleep.

“There are six units total that have suffered severe damage,” said Celeste Kessler with the Los Angeles Tenants Union. “What really blows my mind is that the L.A. Housing Department has declared this a habitable unit.”

Inside Maria Vargas’ apartment, the fire burned through her kitchen, bathroom, personal belongings and several walls, leaving the unit unsafe and uninhabitable. The ceiling was burned through where water can be seen leaking and a clear view into her neighbor’s apartment is visible.

Vargas said she’s frustrated over the lack of ability to do basic things like cook or bathe in her home while also worrying about taking care of her three children.

“I’m not doing very well,” Vargas told KTLA’s John Fenoglio through a Spanish translator. “I’m very worried. We need help to leave this apartment. We can’t stay here.”

Many of the displaced residents don’t have anywhere else to go.

“We spent the night in our car,” said Margarita Linares, a mother of two children whose apartment was also destroyed.

Frustrated tenants told KTLA they’ve tried contacting the building’s manager but he reportedly wouldn’t answer their questions or even speak with them until the following Monday.

“TDI Properties, the owner of this building, has been pretty negligent, I would say, in terms of responding to this fire,” Kessler said. “They have not been speaking with tenants. Tenants went to their office and they refused to open the door so the tenants are grasping at straws to find a place to go where they can live with their children and TDI is just ignoring them.”

Displaced residents are left scrambling and had asked for assistance with temporary housing but said they’ve been completely ignored.

“I can’t believe that this is the reaction I’m getting,” Linares said. “I always pay my rent on time and now that I need something from them, I can’t believe this is the reaction.”

“Council District 10 was on the scene, but so far they have not offered any recourse,” Kessler said. “They talked about hotel vouchers for tenants but at the end of the day, they told us they were out of them. So they truly haven’t been much help, either.”

“There should not be a circumstance where individuals are displaced due to a fire and they are unable to find housing in the short term,” an attorney, Ryan Kerns, explained of the situation. “If the landlord’s negligence was the cause of the fire, then the landlord is responsible for relocating costs and finding replacement apartments. If the landlord can find replacement apartments in the same unit that are of the same value as the apartments the tenants were already having, that can potentially constitute the replacement value of that property.”

On Saturday night, a spokesperson from Council District 10 told KTLA they are working on finding interim housing for the displaced tenants.

A GoFundMe page organized by the Los Angeles Tenants Union to help the affected tenants can be found here.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

KTLA has reached out to TDI Properties for a statement but has not heard back.