Displaced home disaster victims in Starkville have a new source of refuge with the completion of a new temporary shelter, which opened Friday.
The shelter, located in Pecan Acres, will accommodate families of up to six with temporary residence in the immediate aftermath of a house fire.
Starkville Fire Chief Charles Yarbrough said the project will serve families like the roughly 20 that have been displaced since he took his position as chief last March.
“If there’s something that would displace a family from a house, we will let them stay there for three to seven days, and during that time we’ll be trying to help them transition to somewhere permanent,” Yarbrough said.
SFD partnered with the Starkville Housing Authority and raised $4,000 in private donations to convert the long-vacant former Brickfire Project day care facility.
“We were actually using it as a storage building,” Yarbrough said.
When the project first began in April, plans were modest and the house was expected to be completed by June. However, with contributions from Lowe’s Home Improvement and Oktibbeha-Starkville Emergency Response Volunteer Services, the project grew to include construction of two bedrooms, as well as remodeling the bathroom to include a tub and shower.
Lowe’s provided materials, while OSERVS chipped in funds and furnishings for the shelter.
“In April we wanted something very simple, just get in there and clean it out and paint it,” Yarbrough said. “But once Lowe’s and OSERVS got involved and we received some more money, we decided to go in and build.”
OSERVS will also provide occupants with gift cards to purchase food, clothes and other necessities, board member Hildred Deese said. The organization has also provided hotel rooms over the years for fire victims.
Deese said with the shelter as a permanent resource, OSERVS can increase its other types of support for those fire victims.
“It gives us more opportunity to take care of victims’ other needs,” Deese said. “In the past we have spent money to put them up in a hotel for two, three, four days. Now we can buy clothing, give them food and take care of needs other than the housing needs.”
A degree of normalcy
OSERVS Director Karon Makamson said she deals with victims of house fires firsthand. She said the hotel stays OSERVS has funded for Oktibbeha County residents provide necessary placement. The shelter’s accommodations, however, will provide a degree of normalcy she said is so often lacking in from disaster relief for families like one she helped this summer.
“This family in the Oktoc community lost their house, and on top of that, they had to attend the funeral of an uncle the same day,” Makamson said. “They were just in dire need, so we helped them out. They literally smelled of smoke, and they had to go in what they had on to their uncle’s funeral. It’s just heart wrenching to see people go through something like that because fire is so devastating.”
Starkville Housing Authority Executive Director Amy Bishop said the authority has provided housing to displaced fire victims in the past. Bishop said as in those instances, SHA has done its best to shelter victims as quickly as possible, though some may not be eligible.
“Occupants will still have to submit to an application required by the agency, they still have to meet [Housing and Urban Development] requirements as far as a criminal background check and a credit check,” Bishop said. “I have to especially do the criminal background check because even though they might be burned out, I don’t need a sex offender or anything like that on the property because it is family housing.”
Yarbrough said he wants to eventually expand the program to include more shelters, and he hopes the idea catches on statewide.
“We hope this is something that will run through Mississippi and help our people all throughout the state,” he said.
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