After the fire
With almost no collateral, it’s hard to borrow to fix a burned home
As if Samantha King didn’t have enough reasons to fix her mother’s fire-damaged house on Rankin’s Fifth Avenue, her daughter brought another one home from school.
Ms. King, 44, rents a house on Fourth Avenue, and 16-year-old Shelby got in an argument with a young relative of their landlord. As Ms. King recounts it, the landlord’s relative told Shelby, “’You irritate me. … I’ll have you evicted.” Shelby’s response? “What? Evict? … We’re moving anyway.” If only it were that easy. The 2016 fire started next door in a rental house. It singed Ms. King’s mother’s house, damaging the roof and one wall. Mom had no homeowners insurance. Years of vacancy took a toll.
Ms. King would like to fast track the remaining painting, flooring, pipe repair and drywalling that would precede a return. “Instead of just paying rent, I could pay taxes and everything, and help out with other stuff, and get things fixed,” she says. “I can’t move fast enough if I don’t have the money to do it.”
Her earnings from an office job with a health system don’t cover much more than the essentials. And in a town with almost no collateral — the King family house is assessed at $11,600 — it’s hard to borrow. So they rent.
“I hate being over here,” Shelby says. “I like the idea of moving in a bigger house and maybe it would take stress away from my mom about bills and it brings back a lot memories,” she texts later.
Would that it could erase a few memories. She knew Vallen Davies-Mack, of neighboring Swissvale, who was 17 when he was shot dead just over a year ago. She was a childhood friend and schoolmate of Kennir Parr, killed in 2016, at age 14.
“I hate it,” she texts, of the violence. “It’s taking my loved ones away and also innocent people.”
Sometimes she’d rather live anywhere else, even just over in Swissvale, where she helps to coach young cheerleaders. Or East Liberty, where she took a multimedia course over the summer. Perhaps Phoenix, where she has family. She jokes that she’d even prefer Uganda.
Would distance ease the feelings of loss?
“No I think I’d always feel the same,” she texts. “Because nothing can replace people.”