Victims of Fire in Thousand Oaks Turn to Coping With Their Losses

Michele Haggard returned to her residence at Shadow Hills Apartments on Monday morning to find it gutted.

Years’ worth of memories, photographs of her three sons, nearly all her family’s belongings--save for a set of keys and a pile of quarters--had melted in an inferno the day before.

The good news was that she was alive. So were her boys. And Haggard, a petite, 35-year-old sales support representative, was a hero. She rolled her wheelchair-bound neighbor down three flights of stairs--one step at a time--as flames engulfed one of the city’s few affordable-housing units Sunday afternoon.

“It’s just stuff,” Haggard said of her losses. “Yeah, there’s baby pictures, but I’m divorced, so my ex-husband still has half of them. It’ll be OK. My kids are OK. My friends are OK.”

Hundreds of other residents of the 101-unit complex also counted their blessings. No one was killed. Only minor injuries were reported. Several children in less affected units were relieved to find that pet birds and cats they left behind in the rush had survived.

But about 100 people will be displaced for at least a week.

And of those, 20 or so may not be able to return to their apartments for up to three months, said Lisa Safaeinili of Many Mansions, the nonprofit group that operates the complex and five other affordable-housing projects in the city.

Many of those evacuated are among the working poor, and have nowhere to go, no spare clothing and no money to buy food or to replace what they lost.

Often, applicants must wait years for spots in Thousand Oaks’ affordable housing, and officials were scrambling Monday to sew together a safety net for Shadow Hills residents.

Three apartments were gutted and at least four more seriously damaged in the Sunday fire that began shortly before 4:30 p.m.

The amount of structural damage to the $2-million complex near the Oaks mall has not been determined.

Residents and housing officials believe the blaze began when an overturned lamp in one unit caused the carpet to catch fire.

Fire investigators have yet to officially determine the cause, but they have ruled out arson, said Ventura County Fire Department spokeswoman Sandi Wells.

Officials said they were confident that they could secure government vouchers to subsidize rent for most of the displaced residents while their apartments are rebuilt. But they doubted they could find enough openings within city limits toward which to apply the subsidies.

“Our problem is going to be one of inventory,” said city Housing Director Mark Asturias.

“Where are we going to put the people?”

Red Cross and housing officials were looking for volunteers in the Thousand Oaks area who could offer temporary housing for short-term displacements and said they had received some calls from neighbors who offered to pick up the tab for weeklong stays in area hotels.