Fire leaves Lincoln family without a home for the holidays

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - A Lincoln family is homeless this holiday season, following a fire at their apartment building last week.

The Hatcher family has been staying in a hotel, but their future is very uncertain.

Miranda Hatcher and her three children have spent the night in three different hotels in the last four days, ever since the fire at the Ruskin Place apartments.

They’ve been navigating this time without much more than the clothes they were wearing that day.

Miranda’s 16-year-old daughter Lili was the only person home on Dec. 1. She was sick with the flu and woke up to firefighters in their building, yelling for people to evacuate.

“I thought everything was burning,” Lili said.

Her brother, 17-year-old Henry, was on the way home during a break from school and saw smoke.

“I was kind of terrified,” Henry said. “I just didn’t know what was gonna happen.”

The fire inspector said they haven’t figured out the cause of the fire. The unit that caught fire was not the Hatcher’s, but theirs has smoke and water damage. The entire building is un-inhabitable, meaning the Hatchers are without a home for the holidays.

“What do we do? Do we wait until we actually find a permanent place to have Christmas? Do we skip it this year? I don’t know. It’s just sucky timing,” Miranda said.

The Hatchers have liability insurance, meaning they’re covered for things like property damage, injuries or medical bills if they were to be considered liable. But they aren’t covered, because their belongings weren’t damaged - just the apartment.

The family was able to get back into their apartment the night of the fire, but only to get necessities like clothing, medication and their pets - who survived.

Miranda said they received about $500 in assistance from the American Red Cross, but this long-term hotel stay has already used that money up.

She now has to find new housing for herself, her three children and four pets plus storage for their belongings until they can move.

“I know I need to look at the balance of our bank account,” Miranda said. “I need to know what’s in there so that I know what we have in order to keep going. But I’m scared to look at it at the same time because I don’t want to know what we’re spending.”

Miranda said there might be another unit that’s available at her apartment complex, but not until January, meaning several more weeks of hotel stays during a time of year when anyone would just want to be home.

Miranda says she’s in need of help with things like rent for their next home, whenever that will be.

If you would like to help, you can donate to their GoFundMe page.

In all, the Ruskin Place apartment fire displaced 22 people.

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