Three weeks after a fire struck the Roosevelt Building in Downtown Pittsburgh, some residents of the now condemned building are still looking for replacement housing to varying degrees of success.

Louis Tolomeo, 80, has lived in the Roosevelt Building on the corner of Penn Avenue and Sixth Street for seven years. He said he pays market rate rent for his unit, and has had to stay with his son the last few days because he has not yet found replacement housing.

“It’s been so difficult to find a place,” said Tolomeo. “It has been a real hardship.”

According to a notice on the building, nine floors of the Roosevelt were condemned on Dec. 20 and the condemnation order is ongoing. There are 180 units inside the building. It’s unclear how many residents will be displaced while work is completed to make the building habitable again, which officials said could take months.

Tolomeo said it feels like everyone is getting kicked out. He said his apartment on the 11th floor appears undamaged, but said two of the building’s three elevators are out of use.

A five-alarm fire hit the 12th floor of the Roosevelt on Dec. 12, resulting in the death of one woman and critically injuring another person. Two emergency responders also sustained injuries from the fire. Pittsburgh Police said there were 106 people in the building at the time of the fire.

As the fire was extinguished by Pittsburgh firefighters running the building’s sprinkler system, many parts of the building sustained water damage.

Several floors and two elevators sustained significant damage from the water, said Jonathan Kamin, attorney for the Roosevelt Building.

“The damage from the sprinklers is far worse than originally suspected,” said Kamin, who added that the repairs needed to fix the elevators and building’s electrical workings are significant.

He said it would likely take several months to complete repairs.

Pittsburgh Public Safety spokeswoman Cara Cruz said the sprinklers in the Roosevelt were working properly during the fire, and that city firefighters connected to the system to ensure the water pressure was adequate on the upper floors of the building. She said the fire department ran the sprinklers until “they were sure the fire was under control.”

Officials from the city of Pittsburgh have said there has been a coordinated effort between federal, nonprofit and Allegheny County agencies to help relocate residents.

Maria Montaño, spokeswoman for Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, said the Roosevelt has a mix of Section 8 residents and market rate renters. She said the building was condemned because the elevators being out of use means emergency services can’t be adequately provided to the building.

Federal, nonprofit, and county agencies have been working to relocate Section 8 residents, though things have been slowed a bit due to the holidays. Montaño said it is an ongoing process to get all the displaced residents relocated.

Kamin said the cooperation between the agencies has been “very good.” The American Red Cross and the United Way have been helping to relocate Section 8 residents. Kamin said market rate residents were also provided with some funds to help pay for temporary housing. The had their security deposits returned and ended lease agreements, he said.

“It has been an around the clock effort to help people get relocated,” Kamin said.

However, some residents who pay market-rate rents have said the Roosevelt owners are not doing enough to help them find new housing.

Duane Ferguson, 44, said he has put in applications to other apartment complexes near Downtown, but is still waiting to hear back. In the meantime, he is paying out of pocket to stay at a nearby hotel after

Kamin said the owners of the Roosevelt were paying for market renters to stay at hotels following the condemnation orders, but they ceased doing so as of Friday, Dec. 30.

Ferguson said he works two jobs, one at a steel mill and another job at Target. His rent is about $1000 a month and said the market rate renters at the Roosevelt are getting “screwed over” because many haven’t been able to find new apartments yet, and are now stuck paying for hotels or trying to find other accommodations.

“I am homeless at the end of the day,” he said.

He said he has difficulty covering application fees and some apartment complexes have also asked for $500 deposits upfront. He said these payments have been hard to cover since he is paying for a hotel room.

Kamin said the owners share in the residents’ frustrations and the owners are working as fast as possible to complete repairs.

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