Ten fire-displaced families get relief

WHITE SWAN, Wash. – After losing her house to fire 10 months ago, Angela Ike will finally move into a permanent single-wide home by Christmas.

“I’m very excited,” said the mother of 8- and 9-year-old daughters. “I’m really happy. It’s hard for me to describe what this is going to do for me and my girls.”

Like many displaced by the Feb. 12 blaze that destroyed two neighborhoods in this rural town deep within the Yakama reservation, Ike has lived in uncertainty. Trailer homes and stick-built homes were destroyed.

She stayed in a motel for two months and then was allowed to stay rent-free temporarily in a federal Housing and Urban Development home in a White Swan tribal housing project.

A chimney touched off the blaze. Wind blew it into a log pile and eventually into the Second Street and Coburn Loop neighborhoods. Tribal authorities first reported that 18 homes were lost but later changed that number to 14.

Late last summer, four of those homes that were insured were rebuilt.

Delays in replacing the others have some residents questioning what happened to roughly $500,000 in donations that poured in from local dairymen, community fundraisers, individuals and other tribes.

According to Yakama Tribal Administrator Colleen Reimer, much of the money repaired fire-damaged homes and replaced 18 roofs.

More than $100,000 went to 10 displaced families – roughly $9,500 each – so they could buy furniture and other lost household items, Reimer said.

Families that lost stick-built homes but had no insurance each will get about $52,000 toward a new home.

But by Christmas, Ike and nine other families will be able to move into a mobile home park now under construction, Reimer said.

“I would say that all the families who have been displaced by the fire will all be situated this month,” she said. “It will be a wonderful Christmas for them.”

On Thursday, Reimer said she was told by Yakama Indian Health Service officials that water and sewer systems have been installed at the site behind White Swan High School and adjacent to the rodeo grounds.

Reimer said it has taken longer to get the park ready than what the tribe hoped, but there are sanitation and water requirements that need to be followed.

“When you talk of infrastructure, I think there is a lot that takes place that doesn’t meet the eye,” she said. “There is a lot that takes place for us to give our families a safe environment to live in.”

New single-wide mobile homes, 21 in all, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be placed at the park. Measuring 14 feet wide by 64 feet long, they are fully finished.

“The only thing missing would be a washer and a dryer,” Reimer said.

Last year, FEMA made the surplus mobile homes available for tribes across the country to purchase. Getting them to the reservation will cost the Yakama Nation Housing Authority about $1,200, plus another $6,000 to set them up at the park, Reimer said.

Meanwhile, three of the four families who lost stick-built homes but lacked insurance have already chosen plans from a local builder, she said.

Progress hasn’t been as quick as Louetta Lucei would have liked. She lost the home she lived in with her boyfriend and three children. The couple has been renting a house in Granger for $825 a month and driving two of their three children to school in Harrah.

Lucei’s family did receive roughly $9,500 for furniture, and she hopes that construction on their home will begin this month with the $52,000 allotment. She said she is willing to take out a mortgage to cover the remaining cost.