Where are condo collapse families living? Miami firm offering free housing to displaced
Andreas King-Geovanis knows what it’s like to not have a home. To have to sleep in hotels and on the couches of friends.
He lived it in 2001, when his family moved about five blocks away from the World Trade Center. He remembers his mother was on her way to the towers when they fell.
“I was extremely, expartial tremely fortunate to not lose anybody in my immediate family. But I remember vividly what it was like to go back to a home covered in dust, have to go through security checkpoints for months, and really just trying to get things back to normal was a challenge,” King-Geovanis said.
The 31-year-old CEO of Miami-based short-term rental company Sextant Stays sees a lot of “parallels” between 9/11 and the condo tower collapse in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach.
The video of the towers crumbling. Desperate families waiting to hear about their missing loved ones. Miami-Dade’s Urban Search and Rescue team, which assisted in the aftermath of 9/11, and other rescue crews searching through the rubble.
Officials haven’t determined why Champlain Towers South collapsed, although an engineer’s
2018 report flagged “major structural damage” in the pool deck, entrance ramp and garage areas of the building. Six engineering experts have also told the Miami Herald that from earlier reviews of photos, videos, engineering reports and a witness account, the collapse may have originated from a structural column or concrete slab beneath the pool deck.
The investigation could take months or years and will likely be led by the federal agency that investigated 9/11.
IT ‘FEELS PERSONAL’
For King-Geovanis, it “feels personal,” and like a “moral obligation” to help, which is why he opened his newest property in Sunny Isles Beach weeks earlier than planned to temporarily house displaced families for free.
“What these people really need is stability and a place to stay for at least a couple of weeks and not kind of be ping-ponged around different places,” King-Geovanis said.
Within 48 hours, the building at 225 179th Dr. was furnished, had utilities turned on and prepped to accept visitors. It has 19units, with two or three bedrooms in each.
While displaced residents will get first priority, King-Geovanis said they’re also housing some families who have flown in from other states or countries and are waiting to hear about their missing loved ones.
“We don’t want any bed to go unused,” he said.
The company’s outreach efforts have relied on a mixture of social media and contacting other groups that are assisting affected families, including the Shul of Bal Harbour. So far, seven families, some with kids, have moved in. King-Geovanis expects to welcome more families soon and is in talks with the American Red Cross.
Sextant Stays, which provided frontline workers housing last year during the COVID-19 pandemic at its other properties, is also providing relief care packages and $200 Publix gift cards to affected families staying at the Sunny Isle Beach complex. The company is keeping the identities of the families private.
Thompson Team, a real estate company in Pinecrest, and South Florida sports agent Drew Rosenhaus have also agreed to donate $3,000 worth of gift cards, King-Geovanis said.
Talks are also in the works with Yessi’s Kitchen in Miami Beach to provide free meals for the families during their stay.
King-Geovanis said he hopes it will give families some stability while they get “their footing back and figure out how they’re going to move forward and where they’re going to live.”