Residents of the Concord Hills Apartments in Hartford say they are still living in temporary housing nearly three months after a fire displace 50 households.
“I don’t have nowhere to go,” Olga Amandon said. “Thinking what I’m going to do next, because you’re living in one place for 20 years and lost everything.”
Amandon’s apartment is where the fire originally broke out. She said although she wasn’t in the fire, she lives with the trauma every day.
“I’m almost close to 70 years old and I’m asking GreyHill to be prepared and set up,” Amandon said. “Help us, because they will be successful here in Connecticut if they do the right thing.”
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The property is owned by the GreyHill Group, which is based in New York City and has a vast property portfolio.
NBC Connecticut reached out to the company, which says they are working to meet with the residents. It also said that the city has placed a lien on the company.
The city said the lien doesn’t prevent the GreyHill Group from working on the building and that it has offered to pay the remaining cost for the restorations.
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“We share the annoyance,” Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam said. “We share the frustration that the tenants have for this landlord.”
GreyHill Group said it won’t work on the restorations until the lien is removed.
“We communicate with them practically daily right now,” Arulampalam said. “What we really need them to do is to get these units fixed, get the repairs done, completed and back online.”
The city will stop funding the resident’s temporary housing on Dec. 8 and at the moment, there are no plans to extend this deadline. It is offering residents up to $4,000 to assist with a security deposit and first month’s rent for alternative permanent housing.
