Samantha Hauser and her fiancée Matt Hardy were on their way back home to 3226 22nd St. on a recent Wednesday night when their landlord called them to warn them of the fire next door to their apartment on 22nd Street. They ran from the 24th St BART plaza to rescue their German Shepard Lily – luckily, one of their four roommates had taken her out.
“The ceilings collapsed,” said Hauser about the damage to their apartment. Firefighters sprayed the space between the two buildings – both three stories high – with water to prevent the fire from spreading. But two hours after the fire started, firemen ran hoses through Hauser and Hardy’s unit to spray the building on the corner of Mission and 22nd where the fire originated.
Water and smoke severely damaged the couple’s apartment, as well as four other units and downstairs businesses.
Luckily for Hauser and Hardy, they had renter’s insurance, which automatically gave them an advantage over many other tenants caught up in fires. Although 56 percent of the state’s tenants have renter’s insurance in California, many don’t and when disaster strikes they have no fall back, according to the Renters Insurance Institute. Moreover, low income tenants are less likely to carry insurance.
“I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have renter’s insurance,” said Hauser about the seven dollars she pays a month on insurance. The couple and their dog have been staying in temporary housing that their insurance found for them – often Airbnb’s in the Mission. With an estimated $100,000 in structural damage, the couple and their roommates were told their apartment will have to undergo repairs that will take approximately six to eight months.
Their landlord, Kaushik M. Dattani, known in the Mission as one of the Dirty Dozen landlords that the Anti Eviction Mapping project lists under worse evictors, has “bent over backwards” for them and “has been extremely on top of it,” to make sure the couple and their four roommates are informed that they will be allowed to return to their unit. Their landlord, who was present the night of the fire, has already brought a contractor to assess the damage and deem repairs, they said.
For Michael Bungartz, one of Hauser and Hardy’s roommates, the fire aftermath “was not a big financial hit.” Bungartz was planning to take over a room in the flat when his roommate Chris Armstrong moved to Texas. Although he is still planning to move in with another one of his original roommates, he has found a sublet elsewhere for the meantime.
Gabe Sanchez, who had also been living at the apartment and intends to return, said he has been dealing with his insurance bureaucracy because his insurance policy had been cancelled automatically without his knowledge.
“I’m helpless right now with the insurance, I am trying to figure out who dropped the ball where,”he said.
Sanchez has been staying with a co-worker who will let him stay for two to three months, at which point he will reassess his situation.
The damage to their apartment is extensive. “There is about three inches of standing water all around. Walls have water bubbles, the carpet is soaked and ruined, the kitchen stove was pulled or torn out, windows are broken, there is a hole in the kitchen, behind the oven into Matt and Sam’s room,” he said.
As for Hauser and Hardy, the couple had been playing with the idea of moving to Austin at the end of the year. The immediacy of the fire, however, has stepped up their moving date. Their insurance will cover the cost of the trip and temporary housing in Texas. Although “it’s not how we wanted to leave the city,” Hardy said it’s been more of a “logistical nightmare than an emotional turmoil,” that their neighbors next door are experiencing.
“We feel much more fortunate than next door,” said Hardy referring to the 65 displaced residents who have yet to find permanent housing.