Evacuees find housing hunt frustrating

[TexasStooge]

By BRETT SHIPP / WFAA ABC 8

DALLAS, Texas - Danielle Morgan, her five-year-old daughter Daisy and three other friends took a frustrating stroll to Reunion arena in a desperate search for assistance Tuesday.

Their names, once again, were absent from the available housing list, and the Timber Creek Apartments had just informed them they were full. Frustrations have started to build.

"I'm not used to this, I'm used to being in my home," Morgan said. "I didn't have a good life, but just to be thrown away and have to wait on the back burner - this is not cool."

However, what has Morgan really hot are the continual, exasperating conversations with apartment complexes. But when News 8 producer Mark Smith made a call to the Timber Creek Apartments, that exhausting hunt seemed to be at a close end.

"Oh really, if I came in today you could make it available for me by the end of the month?" Smith asked during the call with the complex.

Morgan and the others wasted no time heading straight to the Timber Creek leasing office. But within the span of about 45 minutes, all available units suddenly became occupied.

An employee of the complex seemed to be confused at when and where apartments would be available.

"Right now we are trying to see what we got available, we are kinda on the edge and we need to know what we have available," she told the family.

Even Morgan's offer to pay up front was rejected.

To the family, the message couldn't have been more clear. The evacuees felt unwelcomed.

News 8 talked to the apartment manager shortly after Morgan's conversation with the complex employee to seek answers. Manager Lisa Spence confirmed what the employee told Morgan.

"At the moment, no," Spence said when asked if there was any available housing.

However, her position seemed to soften when Smith told her about the earlier phone conversation with the complex where it was expressed that units would be soon available. Spence later said she wanted to help the evacuees however she could.

"I'll be glad to put them at another property," she said.

While the family had finally found help, it was too little too late for friend Angela Celius. The sense of helplessness, compounded by rejection was at the moment too much to bear.

"If they have a heart, if they know what they are going through," she said through tears. "But thank God we are living. I thank you, yes."

Since the interview with the family, they have signed a lease at another complex with the help of Cheryl Binnie, a Dallas woman who they have called an angel.

Now begins the search for permanent jobs.