Post-fire shelter

Red Cross, Grace Church volunteers to house, feed those displaced by fire

Grace Church is the site of a temporary shelter for about 60 people displaced when a fire early Tuesday destroyed the Desert Sands motel where they were staying.

Red Cross volunteers in Albuquerque have set up an emergency shelter for dozens of people left without a place to stay after a fire ripped through the Desert Sands motel early Tuesday morning.

Volunteer Doug Keaty said the shelter, which is at Grace Church near San Antonio and Louisiana NE, will run for two to three days, and if necessary it can hold all of the approximately 60 people who were displaced after the blaze. Volunteers will try to help them find other housing during their stay at the shelter.

Many of the motel’s guests were long-term residents, staying there weeks or even months.

“It was pretty devastating, it was 60 plus people that became homeless instantly,” Keaty said.

Keaty said Red Cross volunteers were called to the fire after it started, and they arrived to find a chaotic scene at the Central Avenue location, just west of San Mateo. Firefighters battled the flames for hours, and at the end of it the building was uninhabitable, according to fire officials.

Volunteers gave many of the residents cash cards so they could buy a meal Tuesday and set some of them up in other nearby hotels.

Many of them lost everything they owned, and don’t have insurance to replace any of it, Keaty said.

“What are they going to do? They’re really homeless,” he said. “It’s a pretty substantial burden for the city all the sudden, it’s like wow, probably 55 families don’t have somewhere to go.”

So volunteers decided to set up the shelter. People were trickling in Tuesday, and while volunteers were not sure how many would eventually show up, they were prepared for a crowd, if necessary.

Church volunteers will cook them breakfast and lunch, and three dorms and playroom for children were set up for the families, according to Keaty.

“It’s a temporary fix to help people get over that hump for a couple days,” Keaty said. “Anytime America has a disaster it’s the American way to step up and help out. And people in Albuquerque are doing that.”